Regenerative medicine, novel therapies for cancer and development of powerful diagnostic tools is the aim of future nano medical research.

Regenerative medicines for reversal and prevention of paralysis and blindness through regeneration of spinal cord and retina, curing stroke dysfunction through neuron repair, new cartilage development, bone fracture repair, formation of new teeth and curing of Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s diseases are some of the future possibilities.

Researchers at Northwestern University have developed a novel nanostructure that promotes blood vessel growth. This will be very useful for healing wounds and could become an important tool in regenerative medicine and cancer treatment, where new blood vessel formation is critical. The nanofiber's basic building block is a peptide amphiphile that has a hydrocarbon chain on one end and a polypeptide designed to bind heparin on the other. Heparin, a biopolymer that binds to angiogenic growth factors, is used to nucleate the self-assembly of nanostructures from designed peptide amphiphile molecules. In the presence of heparin, these chain like molecules assemble into cylindrical fibers with the hydrocarbon chains at the core and the peptide-heparin complex at the surface. When added with nanogram amounts of angiogenic, growth factors are known to interact with heparin and the nanostructures stimulate extensive new blood vessel formation in vivo. Researchers think that the defined shape and surface of nanostructure account for its remarkable angiogenic properties.