These nanolobes can be the building blocks for new medicine

Oct 22, 2014 08:00 GMT  ·  By

Medicine probably won't disappear from human culture ever, which means that new and better ways of making pills are always being sought after. Nanotechnology is taking its turn at improving things now.

Unlike other non-living objects and substances in nature, crystals can actually develop over a period of time, instead of simply suffering transformations due to outside sources.

Basically, they can grow, and in the process, adopt the traits of the minerals and whatever else is surrounding them. Crystals also tend to always take an angular geometry, but they can take more organic, rounded shapes as well.

Rounded crystals, really small ones, are now being considered as possible building blocks for pills. 3D printed pills to be precise.

Researchers from the University of Michigan have, in fact, created faceless crystals with rounded edges called nanolobes.

The nanolobe possibility

Organic vapor jet printing is the process through which the nanolobes can be created. Since it's a method of additive manufacturing, it has opened doors for 3D printed crystals.

The printing process was invented by Associate Professor of Materials Science Max Shtein, while he was in graduate school. It's like spray printing that dispenses gas instead of liquid.

Ironically though, organic vapor jet printing was being used to make solar cells when the repeating nanolobe pattern was discovered, back in 2010. And it was seen as a malfunction too.

After a while, a student working on a different doctorate drew on the help of a physics professor and looked at the other possibilities allowed by the forms.

The Michigan University scientists believe that the nanolobes can be turned into medicine. The crystals would be easily absorbed into the organism due to the method used for their production.

The large gap between nature and science

Naturally occurring nanolobes can be found in the eyes of Echinoderm sea creatures and the shells of starfish, if you can believe it.

You won't be seeing anyone printing replacement eyes or limbs for those life forms though. Instead, scientists believe that, besides medicine, nanolobes can lead to LED lighting improvements, non-reflective surfaces, and of course, better solar cells, maybe dirt-repellent and self-cleaning materials too.

Unfortunately, we don't have a time frame for any of these potential breakthroughs, but we're pretty sure they won't happen overnight, or even within the next decade. It took four years since the development of the printing process for this much to be achieved, so it will take longer for prototypes and products to be finalized.