[Nanoparticles: properties and application prospects].
A new trend of scientific-technical and medical researches has been formed which unites nanoscience, nanotechnology, nanomedicine, nanopharmacology. Nanoparticles are the main product of nanotechnologies. Nanoparticles are organic and inorganic structures, their size being less than one hundred nanometers (nano from Greece nanos--a dwarf; particle is a separate unit which is separated from the whole). Prefix nano means 10(-9) m. Nanosizes are values from 1 to 100 nanometers, micro-sizes--from 100 to 1000 nanometers, and above 1000 nanometers--are macrosizes. By the data of Internet for 1.08.20.2008 there are 18512 papers in the world scientific literature (8663 of them were published during the last 2.5 years), where properties of nanoparticles which are obtained by different nanotechnological methods are described. Actually, quantity of works concerning nanoparticles is much more because not all publications are cited in Internet. The first publication concerning a characteristic of nanoparticles was published in 1978. The survey generalized the data of scientific literature and author's investigations which concern sizes of nanoparticles of biologic molecules and their properties.
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D000818:Animals; D006801:Humans; D050997:Nanomedicine / Q000379:methods* / Q000639:trends*; D053758:Nanoparticles / Q000737:chemistry / Q000627:therapeutic use / Q000633:toxicity; D010316:Particle Size