Abstract
Nanotechnology research has lately been of intense interest because of its perceived potential for many diverse fields of science. Nanotechnology's tools have found application in diverse fields, from biology to device physics. By the 1990s, there was a concerted effort in the United States to develop a national initiative to promote such research. The success of this effort led to a significant influx of resources and interest in nanotechnology and nanobiotechnology and to the establishment of centralized research programs and facilities. Further government initiatives (at federal, state, and local levels) have firmly cemented these disciplines as 'big science,' with efforts increasingly concentrated at select laboratories and centers. In many respects, these trends mirror certain changes in academic science over the past twenty years, with a greater emphasis on applied science and research that can be more directly utilized for commercial applications.We also compare the National Nanotechnology Initiative and its successors to the Human Genome Project, another large-scale, government funded initiative. These precedents made acceptance of shifts in nanotechnology easier for researchers to accept, as they followed trends already established within most fields of science. Finally, these trends are examined in the design of technologies for detection and treatment of cancer, through the Alliance for Nanotechnology in Cancer initiative of the National Cancer Institute. Federal funding of these nanotechnology initiatives has allowed for expansion into diverse fields and the impetus for expanding the scope of research of several fields, especially biomedicine, though the ultimate utility and impact of all these efforts remains to be seen.
Highlights
On September 13, 2004, at a conference room at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda, the National Cancer Institute (NCI) formally launched the Alliance for Nanotechnology in Cancer to an audience of reporters, government officials, and scientists
Nano Meets Bio To understand the confluence between biology and nanoscience, it is necessary to return to the seminal events of molecular biology in the 1950s
We identify certain forces and lessons from the Human Genome Project (HGP) and discuss how they have affected the Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI) and may impact further implementation
Summary
The subsequent grant applications to these NCI programs signaled the increasing interest of the biological and physical science communities in utilizing nanotechnology to address issues of cancer biology, a sizable expansion of the burgeoning nanobiotechnology movement thanks to federal patronage. Biological applications of nanotechnology (nanobiotechnology) soon became focus of the federally sponsored research programs. Scientists began to explore the viability of experimentally interfacing biology with nanotechnology, including the assembly of DNA sequences into three-dimension structures and the attempt to create biological transistors [1,2]. These projects highlighted the potential for creating novel devices, though fully functional applications would require significantly more research. While the ultimate impact of nanotechnology on diverse fields is still yet to be determined, the progression of developments has already had significant impact on the topics of research as well as on federal research disbursements and helped to promote these fields as big science
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