Diamonds Can Play an Instrumental Role in Science and Biology

Most people have heard that diamonds are a girl’s best friend, but there are some biologists that have found diamonds can also be their friend. The only problem with using diamonds in biology is that they are very expensive, that is until scientists from Taiwan discovered an economical way to create the sizes of diamonds that are currently being used in biology.

The current method of cutting the diamonds to the appropriate size uses an electron beam to slice the diamonds to the appropriate size. While this is a great method of reducing diamonds to the correct size, it is also very expensive. The instrument that was created at the Academia Sinica in Taipei uses a less intense beam of helium ions instead of expensive electrons. The helium beam will actually remove some of the carbon atoms from the diamonds, which will leave voids within the diamonds. All of the small voids will merge together to create the needed flaws within the diamond so that it will fluoresce in the body when it is exposed to a laser. The result is that the diamonds are of the same quality as diamonds that are created using the electron beam.

So, why are diamonds all of the sudden so popular in biology? For years, scientists have been trying to find a substance that would fluoresce (or produce its own light) when it was activated by laser beams. The only problem is that most naturally occurring elements that have some type of fluorescing properties will be toxic to the human body, which makes them unsafe to be used in people for experiments or treatments. The great thing about diamonds is that they are a very stable substance (diamonds are the hardest material known to man) and they are non-toxic, which means that they are harmless to the human body.

There are currently other types of fluorescent material that are being used by biologists, but there are some problems with these other materials, which is why scientists are looking for more stable materials to use. For example, some of the fluorescent dyes that are used will “blink” after they have been exposed to the laser beam, which makes it very difficult to see exactly where the dye is moving throughout the body. Another disadvantage of the other fluorescent material is that they can be toxic to cells, which will cause a great amount of harm.

Another reason why it is becoming more feasible to use diamonds in science and biology is that only flawed diamonds will be fluorescent and flawed diamonds are much less expensive then flawless diamonds. Many individuals may still be confused as to why diamonds would not cause damage, especially since they are very hard and would not be destroyed by the body. The diamonds that are used in biology and science are very small in size; in fact, they are just tens of nanometers in diameter. There are currently many different fields of biology and medicine that are beginning to explore the use of nano-diamonds. One recent study showed that nano-sized diamond particles could be used to track different cells as they move throughout the body.

There have also been experiments performed that showed a great deal of promise of using nano-diamonds to safely deliver chemotherapy drugs to tumor cells, which would decrease the amount of damage that the chemotherapy drugs would do to the surrounding healthy tissues. Another benefit of using nano-diamonds to treat cancer is that the drugs are released very slowly once the nano-diamonds enter the cells. This means that patients would not have to receive treatments as frequently as they do now. Another benefit of using nano-diamonds is that they are a very organized material that the cells of the human body do not respond negatively to. This means that the nano-diamonds can be safely used without causing the cells to become inflamed. One chemotherapy drug that is currently being used in laboratory experiments with nano-diamonds is doxorubicin. Scientists have learned of ways to incorporate the drug with the nano-diamonds in such a way that the medication will only become activated when the nano-diamonds reach the cancer cells.

There has also been a great deal of research performed using nano-diamonds in gene therapy and delivery. In many instances, nano-diamonds can be used by scientists to monitor the development of stem cells within developing tissues in the body, or they can be used to carry medications directly into cells. It has also been shown by preliminary research that nano-diamonds can be used to directly implant genes into cells. This technology could be used in the future to potentially cure genetic illnesses and to create new types of vaccines against different pathogens.

Other articles of interest:

• The History of Diamonds
• The Physical Properties of Diamonds
• Building the First Super-Computer with Diamonds
• What is a Nanodiamond?