Polizu Stefania, Savadogo Oumarou, Poulin Philippe, Yahia L'Hocine
Ecole Polytechnique de Montréal, Quebec, Canada.
J Nanosci Nanotechnol. 2006 Jul;6(7):1883-904. doi: 10.1166/jnn.2006.197.
One of the facets of nanotechnology applications is the immense opportunities they offer for new developments in medicine and health sciences. Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) have particularly attracted attention for designing new monitoring systems for environment and living cells as well as nanosensors. Carbon nanotubes-based biomaterials are also employed as support for active prosthesis or functional matrices in reparation of parts of the human body. These nanostructures are studied as molecular-level building blocks for the complex and miniaturized medical device, and substrate for stimulation of cellular growth. The CNTs are cylindrical shaped with caged molecules which can act as nanoscale containers for molecular species, well required for biomolecular recognition and drug delivery systems. Endowed with very large aspect ratios, an excellent electrical conductivity and inertness along with mechanical robustness, nanotubes found enormous applications in molecular electronics and bioelectronics. The ballistic electrical behaviour of SWNTs conjugated with functionalization promotes a large variety of biosensors for individual molecules. Actuative response of CNTs is considered very promising feature for nanodevices, micro-robots and artificial muscles. An description of CNTs based biomaterials is attempted in this review, in order to point out their enormous potential for biomedical nanotechnology and nanobiotechnology.
纳米技术应用的一个方面是它们为医学和健康科学的新发展提供了巨大机遇。碳纳米管（CNT）在设计用于环境和活细胞的新型监测系统以及纳米传感器方面尤其受到关注。基于碳纳米管的生物材料还被用作活性假体的支撑材料或用于人体部位修复的功能基质。这些纳米结构被作为复杂和小型化医疗设备的分子级构建块以及刺激细胞生长的基质进行研究。碳纳米管呈圆柱形，带有笼状分子，可作为分子种类的纳米级容器，这是生物分子识别和药物递送系统所急需的。纳米管具有非常大的纵横比、优异的导电性和惰性以及机械强度，在分子电子学和生物电子学中有大量应用。与功能化结合的单壁碳纳米管的弹道电行为促进了针对单个分子的多种生物传感器的发展。碳纳米管的激活响应被认为是纳米器件、微型机器人和人造肌肉非常有前景的特性。本文试图对基于碳纳米管的生物材料进行描述，以指出它们在生物医学纳米技术和纳米生物技术中的巨大潜力。
