SHE World addresses key issues for the international pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca. This magazine is designed to inform employees about the current issues and topics of interest in the field of health, safety and the environment. A regular contributor to SHE World, here is an article I wrote about a coming technology for producing pharmaceuticals.
SAMPLE COPY
“Nanotechnology – what is it?
It is hard to imagine the size of a nanometre but if you imagine that the Planet Earth is one metre in diameter, then a nanometre would be the size of a marble. Materials and drugs made on this scale open up a world of possibilities.
Nanotechnology is the ability to do things – measure, see, predict and make – on a scale of atoms and molecules, usually in the realm of 1-100 nanometres. A nanometre is a billionth of a metre (10-9m) and a human hair is about 100,000 nanometres in width. Due to their small size, nanotechnology materials may have chemical, physical or biological properties that are different from those of their larger counterparts. Examples of nanomaterials are carbon balls (fullerenes), quantum dots, nanotubes, nanofibres and nanocrystalline material. Because of these novel properties, nanotechnology materials have great potential for use in a vast array of exciting products. However, the special properties may also pose new and different hazards for humans and the environment.”