Nano Read Online Free Page A

word to anyone. I trust you will keep what I say under your hat.”
    “No problem,” George assured her. He wanted to encourage her. Counting on his confidence was a suggestion of intimacy, for which George hungered.
    “It’s going to be a new type of antisepsis,” Pia continued. “The antibiotic era of fighting bacteria is near its end. I mean, bacteria are developing resistance faster than new antibiotics can be found. The hope is that medical nanotechnology will come to the rescue and provide rapid cures, particularly for sepsis. Specifically, I’m convinced it could cure Will’s osteomyelitis.”
    “How will nanotechnology help Will?”
    “As I said: by using the microscopic nanorobots called, appropriately enough, microbivores, which I’ve been working with for almost two years. They are much smaller than red blood cells, and they eat bacteria and other microorganisms when introduced into the bloodstream of a living animal. They’ll even be able to be programmed to seek out, eat, and digest infectious proteins like prions or the tau proteins associated with Alzheimer’s disease, which antibiotics are useless against.”
    “I’m sorry to have to admit this, but my knowledge of nanomedicine isn’t the greatest. I mean, I know how it has contributed to sun screens, but that’s about it.”
    “Well, you are going to have to catch up or you’re going to be left behind. Medical nanotechnology is the future. It’s going to totally change medicine, probably as much as regenerative stem cell technology. Between the two, five or ten years from now, the practice of medicine is going to be completely different.”
    “Microbivores coursing around in the body eating up bacteria. Sounds like that old science-fiction movie
Fantastic Voyage
.”
    “I guess. I never saw it. But this is not science fiction.”
    “And they are smaller than a red blood cell?”
    “Absolutely. The ones I’m working on are ovoid, with their long axis about three micrometers long, which is six times smaller than the width of a human hair.”
    “I’m telling you: this sounds like science fiction.”
    “They’re real. I’m working with them every day.”
    “So, what about L.A.?”
    Pia cocked her head to the side and regarded George questioningly. “What do you mean, ‘what about L.A.?’” To her, George’s comment was a total non sequitur.
    “I thought you were going to L.A. to do research. You never mentioned Boulder . . .”
    “Well, there was a brief period when I thought I was going to go to L.A. I had found out there was a nanotechnology company in L.A. that was interested in microbivores, but their program is still in the design stage. I applied for a research position, but then I was contacted by a head-hunter who sought me out for the company here in Boulder called Nano, which has far outpaced its competitors in molecular manufacturing.”
    “You’ve lost me again. What’s molecular manufacturing?”
    “It’s building nano-sized devices essentially atom by atom, molecule by molecule. It is the key to making these nanorobots. The head-hunter told me that Nano had already built some microbivore prototypes and had begun testing them in vivo. At that point it was a no-brainer for me. You’ll have to see scanning electron microscope images we have of these things. They’ll blow you away. Truly. They are incredible.”
    “My mind is ready to be blown!” George said, looking at Pia, who returned his stare with more eye contact than usual. He could tell her formidable mind was in high gear. As so often happened, he worried that she could read his mind and realize how little he knew about what she was so passionate about and, if she could, the progress they seemed to be making reconnecting on a personal level would evaporate.
    “I guess I’m going to learn a lot about nanotechnology.”
    “Wait a second,” Pia commented. “George, you didn’t move to L.A. because I—”
    “No, no, of course not.” George