By Candace Stuart
Small Times Senior Writer
Sept. 19, 2001 – The National Science Foundation (NSF) announced today that it will give about $65 million over five years to six university centers to promote research and education in nanotechnology.
The centers will each focus on a specific area in
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| Richard Smalley will head The Center for Nanoscience in Biological and Environmental Engineering at Rice University. |
The awards fit into the NSF’s overall strategy to create infrastructure to support the emerging field of nanotechnology, said Mihail Roco, who oversees the National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI). The NSF is one of six federal agencies initially participating in the NNI and receives the lion’s share of the consortium’s budget — $150 million of $422 million allocated for fiscal 2001.
“We plan to keep the six centers in a network, with each having a critical area of research,” Roco said. “Each has a bold vision for the next five to 10 years.”
Award recipients are Columbia and Cornell universities and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York, Harvard University in Massachusetts, Northwestern University in Illinois and Rice University in Texas.
The centers are headed by some of the top nanotechnology researchers in the nation, many of whom have experience as scientists and entrepreneurs.
While their business acumen wasn’t a key factor in NSF’s selection, such skills are an added bonus, Roco said. “We looked at the quality of the proposals and their impact on the field as well as other partnerships.”
The NSF intends to foster the kinds of interdisciplinary partnerships that are at the heart of nanotechnology, where scientists study phenomena in the range of 100 nanometers or less. A nanometer is a billionth of a meter, or about the length of 10 hydrogen atoms side by side. The centers also have a mission to build an educational foundation in nanotechnology, and collaborate with industry, national laboratories and other groups.
Here’s a rundown of how much each university will receive and what they will focus on.
- Columbia University will receive $10.8 million for the Center for Electronic Transport in Molecular Nanostructures. James Yardley will serve as director. The center will work with industry and national laboratories to understand the effect of charge in applications such as electronics, photonics and medicine. It will also provide programs for local high schools students. Yardley is a professor of chemical engineering.
- Cornell University will receive $11.6 million for the Center for Nanoscale Systems in Information Technologies, with Robert Buhrman as director. The center will focus on nanoscale electronics, photonics and magnetics and their impact on various technologies. It will collaborate with industry on teacher development and mentoring. Buhrman is a professor of engineering and engineering physics.
- Harvard University will receive $10.8 million for the Center for the Science of Nanoscale Systems and their Device Applications, headed by Robert Westervelt. The center will emphasize interdisciplinary research on the properties of nanostructures, and partner with the Boston Museum of Science on outreach programs for middle school students and educators. Westervelt is a physics professor.
- Northwestern University will receive $11.1 million for the Center for Integrated Nanopatterning and Detection Technologies, headed by Chad Mirkin. The center will focus on patterning strategies for soft materials for applications such as chemical and biological sensors. It will provide outreach programs for high school teachers and help develop curriculum material, and will begin an entrepreneurial program. Mirkin is a chemistry professor and co-founder of Nanosphere Inc. and NanoInk.
- Rensselaer Polytechnic University will receive $10 million for the Center for Directed Assembly of Nanostructures, with Richard Siegel as director. The center will partner with the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico on materials projects with applications as composites or in drug delivery devices and sensors. It will partner with several colleges in a minority mentoring program. Siegel is a professor of materials science and engineering and founder of Nanophase Technologies Corp., which is now a public company.
- Rice University will receive $10.5 million for the Center for Biological and Environmental Nanotechnology, with co-directors Richard Smalley and Vicki Colvin. The center will focus on bioengineering and environmental engineering with an emphasis on nanoscale biology and chemistry. It will concentrate on workforce training, recruiting underrepresented members, and entrepreneurship. Smalley is a winner of the 1996 Nobel Prize in chemistry, a professor of chemistry and physics and co-founder of Carbon Nanotechnologies Inc. Colvin is a chemistry professor who specializes in materials.
The NSF planned to announce the awards on Sept. 13 at a nanotechnology symposium in Washington, D.C., but postponed the event after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. The symposium, titled “Small Wonders: Exploring the Vast Potential of Nanoscience,” will take place March 21 in Washington, D.C.
Many of the universities have some kind of existing nanotechnology hub. For instance, Smalley already oversees Rice’s Center for Nanoscale Science and Technology and Mirkin leads Northwestern’s Institute for Nanotechnology. The new centers are not an extension of those centers, but instead complement existing areas of expertise, Roco said.
Northwestern’s Mirkin said the Institute for Nanotechnology serves as an umbrella organization for a number of research thrusts at the university that involve professors and students from various fields in science and engineering. The institute already houses centers that specialize in catalysis and transportation issues.
“This way we don’t have to reinvent the wheel,” Mirkin said. “They (researchers) can pop up and take advantage of that infrastructure. They can take advantage of things in common to all the groups.”
At Rice, the new center will allow researchers to explore a what Smalley called the wet-dry interface, a critical area of nanotechnology. “Wet” molecules are those that exist in living organisms; “dry” molecules such as some nanoscale materials don’t naturally. Finding ways to make the two compatible are key to using nanotechnology for medical purposes, for instance.
“Something from the dry side attached to something from the wet side, something made by a cell like an antibody … that’s a core interest of the center,” Smalley said.
Smalley’s research group studies carbon nanotubes, which have a variety of intriguing properties ranging from being electrically and thermally conductive to nontoxic. Nontoxic molecules can be accepted in biological systems.
He said the center and its 20 research groups will try to discover the ways molecules interact in an aqueous environment – whether it is a body of water or a cell in the body – before introducing nantechnology into any ecosystem.
“This is the area that is most likely to be the rain forest in nanotechnology,” he said.
Roco said the NSF and National Nanotechnology Initiative made collaboration with industry a component to draw from the business sector’s intellectual and practical expertise. In particular, he said, industrial partners will help ensure that research achievements have a societal impact and that the education programs develop a qualified work force. Collaborations also might lead to some technology transfer that would benefit the regions economically.
“In the last few months industry has become more aware of the opportunity in nanoscience,” he said. “We would like to offer them this opportunity to become involved.”
Roco is one of several people who helped shape the initiative starting in 1998. As chair of the National Science and Technology Council’s subcommittee on Nanoscale Science, Engineering and Technology he assumed leadership when Congress approved the NNI’s creation in July 2000.
Other agencies besides the NSF that participate in the NNI include the Department of Defense, the Department of Energy, the National Institutes of Health, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the Department of Commerce’s National Institute of Standards.
The government earmarked $495 million for the initiative for fiscal 2001, but actually allocated $422 million, according to a study by the venture capital group Lux Capital. The Bush administration has proposed a budget increase to $519 million for fiscal 2002, and the addition of the Department of Justice and Environmental Protection Agency.
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CONTACT THE AUTHOR:
Candace Stuart at [email protected] or call 734-528-6290.