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There are many misconceptions regarding the fields of nanotechnology and biomedical engineering. Popular media frequently uses "nanotech" as a sinister agent in which an invisible device can destroy the world. Because biomedical engineers perform a wide variety of tasks, from designing a wheelchair to formulating new drugs, students have difficulty understanding what biomedical engineering entails. In an attempt to help students understand biomedical engineering and nanotechnology, we developed an activity that asks students to design a nanoparticle that can travel through a blood vessel.
Becoming biomedical engineers
One challenge that biomedical engineers face is coming up with ways to deliver nanoscale particles, also known as nanoparticles, throughout the human body. Biomedical engineers combine their understanding of the different cells in the body and how the cells interact with each other to optimize the delivery of nanoparticles to the desired locations in the body. Even though nanoparticles are extremely small, they can get stuck in blood vessels (not travel through the blood stream to get to the area of interest) when used as biomedical sensors (Iverson et al. 2013). In this activity, students will have the opportunity to become biomedical engineers and solve a problem that is directly related to current scientific research that is taking place throughout the world- determining the best way to deliver a nanoparticle to the correct spot within the body.
The size disparity between a nanoparticle, defined as a particle that is less than 10-9 meters large, and a blood vessel is too large for our middle school biomedical engineers to practically work with, so we use a model (easily created by the instructor ahead of time; see Figure 1) that approximates the nanoparticles (using Bunchems, a popular, self-adhering, building block-type toy) and a blood vessel (using a 2' long, 4" diameter clear plastic tube with yarn lining half of the interior). Figure 2 shows an example of students with the blood vessel model and examples of the Bunchems.
Engage
The lesson begins with a class discussion of nanotechnology. Students are asked to describe nanotechnology and ponder the size of a nanometer. Students are encouraged to share ideas with the entire class. Even if a student can give the definition of a nanometer (10-9 meters), very few people, students and instructors...