US National Nanotechnology Initiative Research Articles

Nanosensors and particles: a technology frontier with pitfalls

As we are approaching 20 years after the US National Nanotechnology Initiative has been announced, whereby most of that funding was spend to engineer, characterize and bring nanoparticles and nanosensors to the market, it is timely to assess the progress made. Beyond revolutionizing nonmedical applications, including construction materials and the food industry, as well as in vitro medical diagnostics, the progress in bringing them into the clinic has been far slower than expected. Even though most of the advances in nanosensor and nanoparticle research and development have been paid for by disease-oriented funding agencies, much of the gained knowledge can now be applied to treat or learn more about our environment, including water, soil, microbes and plants. As the amount of engineered nanoparticles that enter our environment is currently exponentially increasing, much tighter attention needs to be paid to assessing their health risk. This is urgent as the asbestos story told us important lessons how financial interests arising from a rapid build up of a flourishing industry has blocked and is still preventing a worldwide ban on asbestos, nearly 100 years after the first health risks were reported.

Toxicity of nanomaterials found in human environment

The US National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI) defines nanotechnology as “the understanding and control of matter at dimensions between approximately 1 and 100 nm, where unique phenomena enable novel applications.” Recent scientific reports available in the literature clearly demonstrate the potential benefits of nanotechnology in consumer and industrial products. More and more nanomaterials are expected to be used in consumer products. This is expected to lead to increased human exposure to nanomaterials in their daily lives. Therefore, the effect of nanomaterials present in human environment is an area of increasing scientific interest. The information presented in this review is obtained from the current literature. It indicates that nanomaterials found in human environment may have potential for toxicological effects. However, the current literature on toxicological effects of nanomaterials is diverse. The current data are presented from studies without harmonization. These studies have used different in vitro and in vivo test models, different sources of test nanomaterials, different methods for nanomaterial characterization, and different experimental conditions. Therefore, these data are hard to interpret. More research on nanomaterial characterization, biological interaction, toxicity, and health effects is needed. The test methods need to be validated. Positive and negative controls for nanotoxicity need to be identified. Toxicity data harmonization needs to be done. Therefore, general information is not currently available for risk evaluation of certain nanomaterials that might be present in consumer products or that may enter into the market in future. Standardized and validated methods are necessary for toxicity assessment of nanomaterials. Therefore, in the absence of standardized validated methods any specific regulatory testing requirements for nanomaterials are currently premature. We conclude that the benefits of nanomaterials found currently in human environment are many, but their overall adverse effects on human health are limited.

Realizing the Promise--The Development of Research on Carbon Nanotubes.

The present reflection on the development of research on carbon nanotubes (CNTs) stems from the publication of the report "Realizing the Promise of Carbon Nanotubes" by the US National Nanotechnology Initiative in 2015. The report is a critical assessment of the state-of-art of CNT research and highlights some unresolved issues related with this field. Starting from the results of this assessment, we carried out an analysis of the publications' pool in CNTs and related domains, by exploiting bibliometric tools. We focused on the item of competition/collaboration between disciplines and nations, with the purpose of evaluating the position of chemistry (as a discipline) as well as the position of the main European countries and the European Union (EU) as a whole in the context of CNT research. The results of such analysis outline very clearly the interdisciplinary landscape wherein CNT research is situated and show the highly competitive place occupied by EU in the field.

The NCI and the Takeoff of Nanomedicine

This paper presents an analysis of the role of US National Nanotechnology Initiative’s Federal funding in the takeoff of nanobiotechnology and nanomedicine. Our comparative analysis of leading nanobiotechnology and nanomedicine scientists funded by the National Cancer Institute highlights the programmatic efforts of the NCI’s Alliance for Nanotechnology in Cancer beginning in 2005. We use a data science approach combining web data extraction, bibliometrics and social network analysis to identify leading nanomedicine and nanobiotechnology scientists and profile their research and commercialization efforts. By coupling leading nanomedicine researchers profiles to NNI Federal funding data we discover and document the relative importance of the US National Cancer Institute’s Alliance for Nanotechnology in Cancer (NCI Alliance) to the takeoff of nanomedicine. The NCI appears to be achieving its stated goal of contributing to both the scientific and commercial infrastructure of translational nanomedicine. Using Gilsing et al.’s innovation network embeddedness model from 2008 we find that the creation and strategic placement of NCI Alliance Centers at critical positions in the Alliance network has enhanced the ability of the NCI to build a sustainable architecture for nanomedicine and foster potentially disruptive pioneering innovation.

Eating small: applications and implications for nano-technology in agriculture and the food industry.

1. Introduction. That synthesis might be undertaken by direct manipulation of atoms was suggested by Richard Feynman in 1959, although term nano-technology (1) was not coined until 1974, by Norio Taniguchi. In 1986, K. Eric Drexler published his book Engines of creation: coming era of nanotechnology, which contained notion of a assembler with capacity to build copies of itself and other items, by atomic level manipulation. The groundbreaking invention, in 1981, of scanning tunnelling microscope (STM) demonstrated that individual atoms could be visualised, and technology was further developed to physically move adsorbed atoms and molecules around on a surface (2). Notable examples (2) demonstrated for publicity purposes are sign-writing of IBM using 35 xenon atoms on a Ni(110) surface, and of 2000 using 47 CO molecules on a Cu(211) surface, by researchers in eponymous organisation, to auger in new millennium. Considerably larger molecules can also be moved using an STM tip, for example 1,4-diiodobenzene and biphenyl, which have been towed around on copper surfaces. The tunnelling electrons may also be used to initiate chemical reactions, products of which can be subsequently manipulated over surface, so providing proof of chemical change having occurred, e.g. conversion of iodobenzene to biphenyl. As a definition, nanotechnology (nanotech) can be described as manipulation of matter over an atomic, molecular, and supramolecular dimension. Molecular nanotechnology is intention of manipulating atoms and molecules, so to create macroscale products. The prefix nano is derived from Greek word meaning dwarf. The US National Nanotechnology Initiative (3) defines nanotechnology as, the manipulation of matter with at least one dimension in range 1-100 nm, where quantum mechanical effects become increasingly important as smaller end of range is accessed. It is critical that particular materials, and devices made from them, should possess properties that are different from bulk (micrometric or larger) materials, as a consequence of their small size, which may include enhanced mechanical strength, chemical reactivity, electrical conductivity, magnetism and optical effects (e.g. Figure 1). One nm is one billionth, or 10 (9), of a metre, which in relative size to a metre is about same as that of a marble to Earth (4). Placed in a different context, an average man's beard grows about 1 nm in time it takes him to lift razor to his face (4). The lower limit is set by size of atoms, which are fundamental building blocks of nanotechnology devices, while upper limit is of a more arbitrary quality but is of dimension at which particular phenomena of quantum realm begin to appear, which are essential to nano-device. A device that is merely a miniaturised form of an equivalent macroscopic version does not ascribe to nanotechnology, lacking these particular phenomena, but is classified under heading microtechnology'. In regard to fabrication of nanodevices, we find bottom-up approach, where materials and devices are constructed from molecular components which self-assemble via molecular recognition, while in top-down approach, nano-objects are built from larger entities, not involving control at an atomic level (6). [FIGURE 1 OMITTED] The plural forms nanotechnologies and nanoscale technologies thus refer to many and various aspects, devices and their applications that have in common this scale of quantum realm. Indeed, there are multifarious potential applications of materials, including industrial and military uses, as attested by investment of $3.7 billion, by US National Nanotechnology Initiative, $1.2 billion by European Union and $ 750 million in Japan (1). It may be that nanotechnology can provide advances in medicine, electronics, biomaterials, energy production and, as is subject of this article, in agriculture and more broadly in food industry. …

Trends in Biomedical Nanotechnology

The nanotechnology, as defined by the US National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI), is fabrication of materials with at least one dimension in 1-100 nm range [1]. The field of nanotechnology has generated tremendous excitement because these materials exhibit fundamental properties that are significantly different from that of bulk material, and are attributable to their small size (≤100 nm). For instance, quantum dots are nanoparticles (2-10 nm) of semi-conducting materials, usually selenides or sulfides of metals like zinc and cadmium. The quantum dots, owing to their nano size, exhibit superior signal brightness, size dependent emission of light, which, is resistant to photo bleaching, contrary to organic fluorescent dyes. Thus by controlling the size of quantum dots, it is possible to control the wavelength of emission for these nanomaterials. The size-based tunable light emission and resistance to photo bleaching observed in quantum dots is attributed to their nano size, and is not present in bulk materials. The main aim of nanotechnology is to take advantage of these unique properties in fabricating novel materials and devices, or developing unique applications. The major thrust of biomedical nanotechnology is to apply the benefits of nanotechnology to healthcare (e.g., imaging and diagnostics; nanodrugs; drug delivery; prostheses; and implants; etc.) [2,3]. Nanotechnology has been earlier used to improve drug properties. For example, pacliaxel (taxol), an anticancer drug, which is used to treat primary epithelial ovarian carcinoma, breast, colon, and lung cancers, exhibits low water solubility and, therefore, poor bioavailability. Therefore, it was formulated in Chremophor EL (polyethoxylated castor oil), which has been implicated in several drug associated toxicities. To overcome these shortcomings associated with the use of Cremophor, paclitaxel bound to albumin nanoparticles (Abraxane) were developed for clinical use. There is a huge interest in employing nanotechnology for cancer drug delivery. The interest in cancer drug delivery stems from the fact that the nanoparticles passively target tumors by a process called enhanced permeability and retention (EPR) effect, as elucidated by Maeda and coworkers [4-6]. It occurs because the tight junctions between endothelial cells of microvessels measure around 2 nm (6 nm in kidney, liver, and spleen), whereas the pore size of tumor microvessels varies from 100 to 1200 nm. Therefore, nanoparticles of appropriate size are able to extravasate into tumors, and not normal tissues, where they are retained because of slow venous return and poor

Radical innovation and policy-making: nanotechnology public R&D funding in the USA and the EU

In this paper, I explore one particular vector of entrepreneurship in nanotechnologies: public R&D funding. Drawing mainly from official archival databases and focused interviews, I do a comparative study of the EU and US public R&D funding systems. My emphasis is on institutional funding coming from the US National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI) and the EU European Frameworks (FP). I show that funding reflects distinct strategies which result from structural differences in the institutions managing public R&D in Europe and in the USA. I conclude by discussing the impact of these differences on entrepreneurship.

Nanotechnology: Small wonders

The US National Nanotechnology Initiative has spent billions of dollars on submicroscopic science in its first 10 years. Corie Lok finds out where the money went and what the initiative plans to do next.

Trends in worldwide nanotechnology patent applications: 1991 to 2008

Nanotechnology patent applications published during 1991–2008 have been examined using the “title–abstract” keyword search on esp@cenet “worldwide” database. The longitudinal evolution of the number of patent applications, their topics, and their respective patent families have been evaluated for 15 national patent offices covering 98% of the total global activity. The patent offices of the United States (USA), People’s Republic of China (PRC), Japan, and South Korea have published the largest number of nanotechnology patent applications, and experienced significant but different growth rates after 2000. In most repositories, the largest numbers of nanotechnology patent applications originated from their own countries/regions, indicating a significant “home advantage.” The top applicant institutions are from different sectors in different countries (e.g., from industry in the US and Canada patent offices, and from academe or government agencies at the PRC office). As compared to 2000, the year before the establishment of the US National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI), numerous new invention topics appeared in 2008, in all 15 patent repositories. This is more pronounced in the USA and PRC. Patent families have increased among the 15 patent offices, particularly after 2005. Overlapping patent applications increased from none in 1991 to about 4% in 2000 and to about 27% in 2008. The largest share of equivalent nanotechnology patent applications (1,258) between two repositories was identified between the US and Japan patent offices.

Present and Future Prospects for Polypeptide Multilayer Nanofilms in Biotechnology and Medicine

Polypeptide multilayer nanofilms are a promising nanotechnology for commercial product development because the processes used to prepare them are simple, flexible, reliable, automatable, and scalable. Moreover, these materials can display a remarkable diversity of physical, chemical, and biological properties. Furthermore, the constituents of these nanofilms, in most cases the nanofilms themselves, and the fabrication process are environmentally benign. Nanofilm structure and function can be tailored to address two Grand Challenges of the US National Nanotechnology Initiative.

NNI in the Future

The article presents the revised strategic nanotechnology program of the US National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI). The development of the nanotechnology research infrastructure via the new plans contained in the NNI is found to be very promising. Comprehensive R&D programs are created to provide the US a competitive edge.

Patents and Nanomedicine

Big pharma's business model, which relies on a few blockbusters to generate profits, is clearly broken. Patent expiration on numerous blockbusters in recent years is already altering the drug landscape. Drug companies are also facing other challenges that necessitate development and implementation of novel R&D strategies, including those that focus on nanotechnology and miniaturization. Clearly, there is enormous excitement and expectation regarding nanomedicine's potential impact. However, securing valid and defensible patent protection will be critical. Although early forecasts for nanomedicine commercialization are encouraging, there are numerous bottlenecks as well. One of the major hurdles is an emerging thicket of patent claims, resulting primarily from patent proliferation as well as continued issuance of surprisingly broad patents by the US Patent and Trademark Office (PTO). Adding to this confusion is the fact that the US National Nanotechnology Initiative's widely cited definition of nanotechnology is inaccurate and irrelevant from a nanomedicine perspective. It is also the cause of the inadequate patent classification system that was recently unveiled by the PTO. All of this is creating a chaotic, tangled patent landscape in various sectors of nanomedicine where the competing players are unsure of the validity and enforceability of numerous issued patents. If this trend continues, it could stifle competition and limit access to some inventions. Therefore, reforms are urgently needed at the PTO to address problems ranging from poor patent quality and questionable examination practices to inadequate search capabilities, rising attrition, poor employee morale and a skyrocketing patent application backlog. Only a robust patent system will stimulate the development of commercially viable nanomedicine products that can drastically improve a patient's quality of life and reduce healthcare costs.

IJN's second year is now a part of nanomedicine history!

Welcome to the second year of the International Journal of Nanomedicine! As our readers know, nanomedicine research worldwide is going strong. As an example, the US National Science Foundation forecasts that the global market for nanotechnology-related products and services will reach US$1 trillion by 2015 (NSF 2007). Nanomedicine may be defined as the monitoring, repair, construction, and control of human biological systems using engineered nanodevices and nanostructures at the molecular level. Although this definition still seems quite broad and all-encompassing, it is clear that this definition is founded on the design, synthesis, and evaluation of nanomaterials in medicine. Basic nanostructured materials, engineered enzymes, and the many products of biotechnology will be enormously useful in near-term medical applications (Foresight 2007b). One part of nanomedicine is the development of precisely controlled or programmable medical nanomachines and nanorobots. Such microscopic machines were first hypothesized by the Nobel-winning physicist Richard Feynman in 1959, and later were described at length by K Eric Drexler in his popular books Engines of Creation (1986) and Unbounding the Future (1991), and in his more recent technical book Nanosystems: Molecular Machinery, Manufacturing, and Computation (1992) (Foresight 2007b). While we are often focused on the future of the field of nanomedicine, it is equally important to consider its past. Below is a list of critical dates in the field of nanotechnology, and the outgrowth of nanomedicine from nanotechnology that we must never forget (Foresight 2007a): 1959 Richard Feynman gives an after-dinner talk describing molecular machines building with atomic precision, believed to the first time nanotechnology is proposed as a research initiative that could revolutionize science. 1974 Norio Taniguchi (1974) uses term “nanotechnology” in paper on ion-sputter machining. 1986 The Atomic Force Microscope is invented which has subsequently allowed for unprecedented control over nanomaterial design and characterization. 1987 First university symposium “Exploring Nanotechnology” on Jan 20th at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, US. 1988 First university course at Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA, US: “Nanotechnology and Exploratory Engineering”. 1990 First nanotechnology journal called Nanotechnology published. 1996 First nanobio conference by International Business Communications “Biological Approaches and Novel Applications for Molecular Nanotechnology” December 9–10, 1996, in San Diego, CA, US. 1998 First study demonstrating increased tissue growth on nanostructures compared with currently used materials (Webster et al 1998). 2000 US President Clinton announces US National Nanotechnology Initiative. 2003 Congressional hearings on societal implications of nanotechnology. 2006 Reflecting the worldwide interest in nanomedicine, the first international journal in nanomedicine is created: International Journal of Nanomedicine. View it in a separate window Welcome to the International Journal of Nanomedicine’s second year, now a part of history.

The US National Nanotechnology Initiative after 3 years (2001–2003)

Research and education results after the first 3 years of National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI) investment are outlined. The history of NNI and several potential outcomes by 2015 are discussed. The views expressed here are based on the interview given for the website www.nano.gov on November 2003.

Broader Societal Issues of Nanotechnology

Nanoscale science and engineering are providing unprecedented understanding and control over the basic building blocks of matter, leading to increased coherence in knowledge, technology, and education. The main reason for developing nanotechnology is to advance broad societal goals such as improved comprehension of nature, increased productivity, better healthcare, and extending the limits of sustainable development and of human potential. This paper outlines societal implication activities in nanotechnology R&D programs. The US National Nanotechnology Initiative annual investment in research with educational and societal implications is estimated at about $30 million (of which National Science Foundation (NSF) awards about $23 million including contributions to student fellowships), and in nanoscale research with relevance to environment at about $50 million (of which NSF awards about $30 million and EPA about $6 million). An appeal is made to researchers and funding organizations worldwide to take timely and responsible advantage of the new technology for economic and sustainable development, to initiate societal implications studies from the beginning of the nanotechnology programs, and to communicate effectively the goals and potential risks with research users and the public.

Towards a US National Nanotechnology Initiative

Towards a US National Nanotechnology Initiative