3 ms·
2030 seems way too early, but Feynman predicted the nanobots a while ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4eRCygdW--c https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4eRCygdW--
by pazimzadeh 4y ago
2030 seems way too early, but Feynman predicted the nanobots a while ago:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4eRCygdW--c https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4eRCygdW--c
There are at least two ways to go about this:
1 - keep making computers smaller until they are ingestible and somehow interface with biology
2 - learn enough about existing biology to be able to re-program cells for our purposes
However, to me the most exciting type of projects are the ones that merge these approaches, like an ingestible pill shaped device containing a compartment filled with bacteria engineered for particular tasks. In one case the bacteria were made to glow in the presence of heme, and the device contains a light sensor as well as bluetooth transmitter to relay the data to the smartphone in real time.
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aas9315 https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aas9315
As Feyman mentioned, this type of device could also be made to capture a biopsy, perform certain micro-surgeries, etc aka Swallow the Doctor.
But without even even getting to the super fancy nanorobots, it seems to me there is a lot of low-hanging fruit in simply chemically modifying or repackaging existing drugs for tissue-specific application. This would enable increasing the dosage of existing medication without increasing side effects. That seems like something that could happen by 2030 and it would revolutionize medicine.