In the year 2083, Anne will be 110 years old. Although she is nimble, she trips on a rug, falls and fractures her hip. She remains on the floor, waits ten minutes, and then stands up again after her thigh-bone has healed itself. How could this happen? Since the year 2070 centenarians have been ingesting self-adhesive nanoparticles which replace a part of their bone components. This may appear to be science fiction, yet it is health care’s next frontier. In fact, medicine is already using miniature devices no larger than a few billionths of a metre – i.e., nanometres – which are programmable, intelligent and capable of simultaneously performing several tasks relating to disease diagnosis or therapy. What opportunities does nanomedicine offer for the treatment of serious diseases such as cancer? And what are the risks? This book explains all one needs to know about the present and the future of tomorrow’s tiny science.

Massimo Masserini teaches Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the Bicocca University in Milano, where he heads its Nanomedicine Centre and conducts research on Alzheimer’s and other neurodegenerative diseases. He is also the director of the International School of Nanomedicine at the Ettore Majorana Foundation in Erice.