ABSTRACT

Keywords: atomic force microscopy, nanomedicine, cancer diagnosis, cellular nanomechanics, exosomes, biomarker detection, ex vivo detection, real-time kinetics detection, single molecule detection, cell elasticity, cellular dynamics

to the World Health Organization, the number of people in US only with a chronic illness will grow from 118 million in 1995 to 157 million in 2020. Therefore, new technologies will be needed to overcome these challenges such as implementation of nanotechnology applications for healthcare. In particular, the development of a wide spectrum of emerging nano-enabled technologies may hold great promise for medicine and healthcare benefits by complementing and enhancing the current diagnostic and therapeutic capabilities of existing healthcare systems. Indeed, nanotechnology could be the crucial enabling technology that will turn the promise of theranostics [1] into reality, i.e., personalized therapy customized to serve patient needs based on their exact genetic and molecular diagnostics.