Video and Gaming
Music and Theater
About The Nanoman
The Nanoman is an interdisciplinary, multimedia outreach program that interfaces STEM disciplines (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) with the performing arts. The Nanoman is a co-production by retro-forward musical writing team Knight&Brinegar and The Steinmetz Lab.
The Nanoman outreach program's mission is to disseminate recent scientific advances in the area of nanotechnology and oncology to the general public and K-12 students. To pique interest and reach out to a broad audience, our program combines nanoscience and technology with live musical theater, animated video, and gaming.
Cancer is typically treated with chemotherapeutics; these drugs are highly toxic and not targeted to the cancer cells, which means that patients suffer from many side effects. Nanotechnology – the science and engineering of objects at the nanometer-scale (~ 2,000 times smaller than the width of a human hair) – opens the door to change this. Several nano-based therapeutics are already used in the clinic, examples include Doxil and Abraxane, and many new nano-based formulations are currently being developed and tested in preclinical and clinical studies. Chemotherapies are loaded into the nanoparticles; the nanoparticles than functions as a carrier to target the drug to the site of disease, while avoiding healthy tissues.