Green Medicine
Green or sustainable medicine is one that recognizes the link between the environment, medicine and human health and seeks to provide better health care while protecting the limited environmental and medical resources.
Researchers at the Nano-Science Center and the Department of Neuroscience and Pharmacology at the University of Copenhagen have characterized and tested how molecules react, combine together and form larger molecules, which can be used in the development of new medicine. The researchers claim that they are able to work with reactions that take place in very small volumes, namely 10-19 liters which is a billion times smaller than anyone has managed to work with before. Even more intriguing is the ability to do so in parallel for millions of samples on a single chip. This method will be of interest to industry because it makes it possible to investigate drugs faster, cheaper and greener.
Green production
Self-assembly is a fundamental principle in nature and occurs at all the different size scales, ranging from the formation of solar systems to the folding of DNA.Self-assembling systems, such as molecules, are biological systems that organize themselves without outside control. This occurs because some molecules fit with certain other molecules so well that they assemble together into a common structure.
By using nanotechnology observations can be made as to how specific self-assembling systems, such as biomolecules, react to different substances. The self-assembling systems consist entirely of biological materials such as fat and as a result do not impact the environment, in contrast to the materials commonly used in industry today (e.g. plastics, silicon and metals). This and the dramatic reduction in the amount of used materials makes the technique more environment friendly, 'greener'," according to the researchers.