The Small Times university survey included 26 questions about funding, facilities, patenting, company formation, collaborations with industry, research, publishing, and micro and nano-specific courses and degree programs. It also gave respondents an opportunity to state which of their peer institutions they thought were leaders in micro and nanotech research and commercialization.

Here are the results, based on responses from 50 universities. Data from the responses were divided into categories and analyzed to determine the top 10 universities for each category. Categories are research, education, facilities, industrial outreach and commercialization. The peer rankings covered micro research, nano research, micro commercialization and nano commercialization.

Note that some universities made the peer rankings but do not appear elsewhere. Those universities did not respond to the survey or provided incomplete responses.

Click here to enlarge image

null

Chris Mather had some reservations about my proposal, and for good reason. The idea was, well, unconventional. And risky, since it involved an audience that might not buy into the concept. But he kept his concerns to himself, telling me about his doubts only after my talk as we navigated through the night cleaning crew at the Great Lakes Science Center in Cleveland.

He had invited me to speak to Nano-Network, an association for the nanotech community in the Cleveland region. Mather, vice president of the technology-based economic development group NorTech, organized bimonthly talks and other events for Nano-Network. He and I had been discussing the possibility of a visit to Cleveland – my hometown – since the previous fall, eventually agreeing on a date in late March.

I suggested that I focus my talk on Ohio’s relative position as a nanotech leader. I could draw from Small Times’ annual analysis of state activities in research, innovation, company formation, venture capital investment and other factors that serve as measures of growth for a tech hub. But I wanted to add a twist. After years of overseeing the state rankings project for Small Times, I felt that the standard model used for this kind of analysis could be broadened.

Would adding business leadership put the results in sharper focus? After all, a startup with great technology but inexperienced executives could easily fail, while a company with mediocre technology but veteran leadership could prosper. And did proximity to customers matter? If these factors made a difference, how might we measure them?

I proposed a 40-minute talk that compared Ohio and New Mexico, two states that made the top 10 list in 2005 but for very different reasons. Then I wanted to turn the tables, using the question-and-answer session to pose my questions and see what kind of responses they would elicit.

Yes, it could have been dead silence. But instead a few hands rose in the audience. The first commentator talked about Midwest ethics, and how a person’s word was valued in Ohio. That quality of leadership, not quantity, mattered. More hands appeared. Inventors discussed frustrations with funding. Chief executives shared strategies. Researchers gave testimonials. My role shifted from speaker to moderator of an 80-or-so-person group discussion. After 45 minutes, we were threatened with being locked in with the janitors if we didn’t vacate the center.

A few weeks later I was reminded of that open exchange of professionals as I conducted interviews for an article about nanotech facilities. The story appears in our special report. Several planners mentioned their enjoyment at witnessing the swapping of ideas that occurred as scientists and engineers – heretofore strangers – met at preliminary gatherings to discuss what they hoped to achieve with a nanotech center. Some of those encounters have grown into the kinds of interdisciplinary research partnerships needed to push nanotech ahead.

And that may be my favorite trait of people involved in nanotechnology: their willingness to accept and even embrace otherness. Their willingness to step into the less familiar, the unfamiliar and the completely unknown is an inspiration.

For five years I have had the privilege to march alongside as we built Small Times from scratch. I now have an opportunity to do something similar with the startup Cleantech, whose focus on efficient and environmentally friendly technologies overlaps with nanotechnology in many ways.

So this is not a “goodbye.” It’s a “see you later.”

Candace Stuart is editor-in-chief at Small Times. She can be reached at [email protected].

Centers’ designs, philosophies foster collaboration

By Sarah Fister Gale

The $58 million Birck Nanotechnology Center at Purdue University brims with novelty. The facility features more than 22,000 square feet of laboratory space, including special low vibration, temperature-controlled rooms for nanostructures research. Its 25,000-square-foot Class 10-100-1000 nanofabrication cleanroom holds a biomolecular lab with separate entry and gowning areas and isolated air flow. It is the first such blended cleanroom design of its kind.

But what is perhaps its most advanced concept has nothing to do with equipment and labs. Purdue uses its showcase facility in West Lafayette, Ind., to bring researchers of various backgrounds together in revolutionary ways through its design and requirements.

“If you are going to work on the cutting edge of nano research, it has to be multidisciplinary,” said George Adams, research development manager for Discovery Park, which houses the Birck center. “The Birck center makes that connection. It increases opportunities for interaction among all of the disciplines.”

The Birck Nanotechnology Center draws researchers from multiple scientific and engineering backgrounds, enabling – or forcing – them to share equipment, lab space and opportunities for collaboration. It is a strategy that nanotech leaders around the globe say is imperative for advancing nanotechnology.

While only open a few months, the Birck center already supports several projects, including a combined bioMEMS and nanobiotechnology effort to create a micro-integrated system for the detection of Listeria monocytogenes.

The $58 million Birck Nanotechnology Center at Purdue University is a 187,000-square-foot facility designed to bring experts from different disciplines together under one roof to collaborate, share ideas and make innovations. Photos courtesy of Purdue UniversityClick here to enlarge image

“Before we had the Birck center, this research was done in three different buildings,” said Raschid Bashir, a nanobiologist at Purdue who is working on the project. “This building is a dramatic improvement, not just because it speeds things up but because it enhances our understanding.”

Most scientists who work at Birck are similarly excited about the opportunities for interaction, although to ensure the teamwork philosophy is embraced, everyone who uses the facility must first complete a custom training course that covers operating procedures, equipment use expectations, protocol for how and when to use the lab space, and the center’s philosophy of shared space.

“This is not an optional course,” said John Weaver, facility manager for the Birck center. Weaver, who was in charge of developing the course, insists that everyone from senior staff to housekeeping complete it. “Everyone who uses the facility takes the training, and they don’t get their office keys until they finish.”

That approach, in which grad students train side by side with department deans, helps ease the potential for conflict among researchers from different disciplines who might think they deserve special treatment. “We are breaking down the behavior that leads to siloing,” Weaver said. “If you don’t embrace that philosophy, you can’t work in this center.”

To support the culture of cooperation once they get inside the doors, scientists are expected to share any equipment they bring into the facility. Labs are allocated to projects, not people, and the building’s open air design, communal office spaces, glass walls and white boards in the sitting areas encourage communication among researchers and students. “All scientists need white boards when they talk to each other,” joked Weaver.

The center also offers a full administrative staff who help manage paperwork and other “task interference items” that can slow projects down. “Our faculty are most valuable when they stay focused on their area of expertise,” Adams said. “The administrative support makes it easier for them to get big projects proposed and managed.”

There are still obstacles to creating seamless working relationships among different scientists, such as developing common terms and process strategies. But experts such as Jackie Ying, executive director of the Institute of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology (IBN) in Singapore, believe that giving them the space and technology to further their research goes a long way toward creating successful teams.

“We have found that people from different fields are able to learn the ‘language’ of other disciplines and share information with one another if they have a common work space,” she said.

For example, scientists at IBN working on a tissue engineering project can fabricate their devices in the cleanroom, deposit biomaterials in the chemistry lab next door, and then proceed to the adjacent cell culture room for in vitro experiments. IBN also holds regular joint group meetings and institute-wide research symposia for research staff and students to familiarize themselves with one another’s projects, exchange ideas and share expertise.

Like the Birck center, IBN adopted an open concept in the design of its laboratory and office spaces. All of the major equipment items are housed in shared equipment rooms, which are accessible to all researchers.

“We are very fortunate to have a first-rate research facility and a significant equipment budget, which allow us to provide our scientists, engineers and medical doctors with the various types of equipment to conduct their research,” she said, although she noted that creating physical spaces that accommodate the needs of all the researchers is tricky. The Nanos (IBN’s premises at a complex called Biopolis) features 96,000 square feet of lab space along with cleanrooms for microfabrication, and the staff faces ongoing challenges to find space for equipment and research that doesn’t conflict with the work of others.

“We have chemical fumehoods, which need to be separated from cell culture rooms. We also have special characterization facilities in the sub basement, such as high-resolution electron microscopes and nuclear magnetic resonance spectrometers,” Ying said. “As scientists of different disciplines require different tools and facilities, it has been particularly challenging to optimize the laboratory space at the Nanos.”

Patrick Boisseau has spent the last few years making similar efforts to link far-flung nanobio scientists in the European Union. He still struggles to help scientists gain access to interdisciplinary facilities similar to the Birck center or IBN.

Boisseau is the coordinator of Nano2Life at the NanoBio Center in Grenoble, France. Nano2Life is the first European Network of Excellence in nanobiotechnology supported by the European Commission under the Sixth Framework Program. Its objective is to make Europe a leader in nanobiotechnology by merging existing European expertise and knowledge in nanobiotechnology.

“The EU Commission is beginning to realize that most nanotech activities in the EU are fragmented,” Boisseau said. “We believe if you put people together you will go higher, faster, than if they were working alone.”

The Birck center’s glass facade, shown here in early construction, contributes to an open design that is meant to help researchers interact.Click here to enlarge image

Through Nano2Life, Boisseau tries to foster relationships among people, organizations and disciplines that will jump start research and result in marketable products. “It has to go further than polite collaboration,” he said. “Real integration means cross-dependency of partners, and that takes a long time.”

Founded in 2004, the network acts as a European nanobio think tank supporting an exchange of knowledge, ideas and vision among its members through the incubation of joint research projects, the networking of intellectual and technical resources, new education and training courses, and the transferring of technology.

Boisseau believes that if the EU is going to succeed in becoming a source of cutting-edge nanobio research, its scientists need to get beyond the obstacles caused by distance and language barriers. “I don’t know any organization in the world that can implement a project and develop a nano device on its own. If we want to succeed we have to work together.”

Part of that ambitious goal is creating centers of excellence in the EU where scientists can perform complementary research in the same space and develop relationships that will result in successful projects. “There is a minimum period of time it takes for scientists to get used to each other and become a truly integrated team with a shared vision,” Boisseau said. “Creating centers where these relationships can develop is key to bringing products to market.”

Most researchers agree that creating multidisciplinary teams for nano research will be easier in the future. For now, they say that creating opportunities and facilities where scientists can connect must be a priority for bringing nanotech products to market.

“It’s our job to enable research that will speed our understanding of nanotechnology,” said Purdue’s Weaver. “It’s the only way we can benefit society through our work.”

In 1849, gold was found at Sutter’s Mill in California. Alas, John Sutter never prospered by this discovery. The Supreme Court ultimately held he did not have proper title to this property. In 1889, Alexander Smith laid claim to valuable property during the Oklahoma land rush. Unfortunately, the Supreme Court held that he lost the property due to the illegal actions he took during his rush for land. In today’s emerging field of nanotechnology, where the mad rush has moved from real property to intellectual property, nanotechnology pioneers need to understand and adhere to the law when staking their property claims.

Patent law reform has become a Congressional agenda item as companies work to protect the nation’s technological innovations. Reforms focused on improving the quality of issued patents and curbing abusive patent litigation, however, could adversely affect nanotechnology innovators such as university researchers, sole inventors or small companies. As these potential patent law changes evolve, typical nanotechnology pioneers will need to pay close attention to cultivate their intellectual properties in view of these changes. Otherwise, the impact will hardly be nano.

The manner in which Congress has proposed to improve the quality of issued patents will tend to increase the costs to obtain a patent, an increase that smaller entities will feel more. Its proposed method to curb abusive patent litigation generally reduces the risk for third parties to infringe patents, lowering the value of the patents received.

This does not mean that Congress’ proposed changes to the patent laws are wrongful per se. To the contrary, the ramifications depend on a parties’ viewpoint (i.e., a large company vs. small, a patentee as opposed to an alleged infringer, or a technologist in an emerging technology as compared to a mature technology). However, since the typical nanotechnology innovator is a small entity, potential changes to the U.S. patent laws can have a big impact.

In its proposed changes, Congress has elected to bypass the first-to-invent standard and adopt a first-to-file scheme. This means the proverbial race to the patent office will be won by the swift and the cost of protracted interference proceedings between inventors will presumably be a thing of the past. Despite this proposed change, inventors must still continue documenting their inventorship process because only the true inventor may obtain a patent. The net result favors a strategy of filing patent applications (particularly provisional patent applications) early and often to protect a party’s innovations.

Congress also proposes to eliminate the “best mode” requirement (disclosing the best embodiment known by them when filing their patent application). Such requirement promoted full disclosure of the invention, rewarding people who were willing to share what they had discovered. Eliminating “best mode” will force nanotechnology patent applicants to walk a fine line between how much to disclose of their invention (to obtain a strong patent) and how much to hold back (to retain trade secrets to give themselves a competitive edge). In emerging fields, it is difficult to determine which aspect will ultimately have long-term value.

This leads to another change Congress proposes, namely allowing the patent office to put limitations on continuation applications. The present theory is that applicants could watch the industry develop around certain technology, and then amend their claims in a continuation application to cover these new developments. Again, the difficulty in patents and patent applications for emerging technologies is that there is less past knowledge of what will become important in the field as time progresses. Emerging companies must strive to make this determination early and to take steps to show they are not abusing the system to unfairly broaden their property claims.

Another change proffered by Congress is the ability of third parties to oppose patents for a period of time after they issue from the patent office. Patentees are legitimately concerned that the opposition process is subject to abuse by third parties. For instance, a large entity concerned about the issuance of a patent for a small entity may oppose the patent. The small entity would have little choice and endure a long and costly opposition proceeding well before any legitimate damages have begun to accrue. By such process, the large entity can prevail by attrition because the small entity may not have the resources or wherewithal to fight the opposition.

These are not the only changes proposed. Congress has targeted an applicant’s duty of candor, willful infringement, apportionment of patent damages, injunctive relief, prior user rights, venue issues and more. As these proposed changes are not yet final, they still may be modified or withdrawn before enactment.

What is important to realize now is that regardless of what the final changes to the patent laws turn out to be, nanotechnology pioneers must adapt to these new rules. Otherwise they will be like John Sutter, who literally stood on top of a pile of gold but somehow failed to own any of it.

Click here to enlarge image

Ross Garsson is chair of the intellectual property section at Winstead Sechrest & Minick P.C. He can be reached at [email protected].

By Candace Stuart

Phil Haswell faced a formidable challenge. As the director of facilities for the engineering faculty at the University of Alberta, he was charged with finding the ideal location for the National Institute for Nanotechnology facility on the university’s Edmonton campus. Planners insisted that the six-story, $56 million center serve as a physical bridge for the diverse disciplines needed to create novel nanomaterials, nanodevices and nanosystems. That meant proximity to buildings used by chemists, physicists, biologists, life scientists, engineers and medical researchers.

At the same time, the facility’s environment needed to meet the high standards required to perform nanotechnology research and development. Labs had to be free of pesky electromagnetic forces and vibrations that permeate standard buildings. That was no easy task, considering that everyday factors like transmission lines, rumbling traffic and even jiggling elevators can cause perturbations that affect the sensitive microscopy tools used in nanoscience and nanotechnology.

“We needed to have as much (interdisciplinary) interaction as possible,” Haswell said. “Our success will be influenced by that interaction. But if the perfect site with no EMI (electromagnetic interference) or vibrations was out on a farm, that wouldn’t do.”

Haswell knew that diverting large amounts of his limited building budget toward EMI shielding and reinforced flooring and foundations wouldn’t do, either. Instead, he compromised.

“We did a site survey,” he said. “Where we found low EMI and vibration were coincident, that’s what we chose.”

The designers, builders and overseers of the nanotechnology research centers being erected on campuses worldwide agree that money alone won’t guarantee a quality facility. Many environmental problems that are inherent in a campus location can be minimized if not totally avoided with strategic placement of buildings and labs. That, in turn, requires foresight and careful analysis.

It took about two years for builders to complete the National Institute for Nanotechnology. The facility on the University of Alberta’s campus is now ready for occupancy. Photo courtesy of University of AlbertaClick here to enlarge image

“The projects that I feel have not been successful have not been well studied ahead of time,” said Ahmad Soueid, senior vice president of HDR Architecture Inc. HDR has overseen the construction of numerous high-profile nanotech centers, including the Advanced Measurement Laboratory for the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the Birck Nanotechnology Center at Purdue University.

“This is not the standard lab of the past,” Soueid added. “No one can really provide a 100 percent solution. They’re balancing requirements and deciding which is most important.”

Thanks to its ability to find the sweet spot – or more accurately, the semi-sweet spot – the National Institute for Nanotechnology is positioned to become a leader in nanotech research. Construction finished in 2005 and installation of equipment began this spring. About 120 researchers and staff from Canada’s National Research Council, which partnered with the university to create the center, are expected to claim offices and labs in May and June. Another 275 graduate students and post-doctoral researchers plus 45 workers from industry and other universities are expected to move in as well.

Many universities are racing to build high-quality research centers to support nanotech innovation. Like the University of Alberta, they want to be at the forefront of nanotech research, and know that a facility that can accommodate state-of-the art equipment will entice top-notch faculty. State and national governments support the construction and recruitment efforts in hopes that university-based discoveries will lead to new companies, high-paying jobs and a stronger economy.

“You have to have the facilities to attract the faculty, and you have to have the faculty to attract the students,” said Luis Carrazana, associate director of capital and physical planning at the University of California at Riverside. UC-Riverside is poised to begin construction on a $65 million materials sciences and engineering building that will include research facilities, imaging laboratories and a cleanroom. “Part of our role is to be an economic engine for the region.”

Carrazana faces an even greater challenge than his colleagues in Canada. Riverside’s poor soil quality coupled with rising costs for material and labor are eating away at his resources, even before the first shovel has been lifted. The building will require concrete piles that he estimates will make the foundation four times more expensive than is the standard.

Marginal environments can be made into suitable nano centers if the need justifies the costs, EMI and vibration experts say. Planners should conduct a thorough analysis of indoor and outdoor environmental factors to identify the regions within the building that will require the least amount of tweaking to become low vibration and low EMI sites.

Shielding protects a scanning electron microscope developed at the National Institute of Standards and Technology from acoustic vibration. The instrument is housed in the metrology wing of NIST’s Advanced Measurement Laboratory. Photo courtesy of HDR Architecture Inc./Steve Hall © Hedrich BlessingClick here to enlarge image

Hal Amick, vice president of technology with the acoustic and vibration consultants Colin Gordon & Associates, said even a campus bordered by what he considers the nemesis for a nano lab – railroads – succeeded in building a center. The University of Louisville offers a research facility despite having railroad tracks abut three sides of its campus. “We found the sweet spot that was farthest from the rail,” he said. “It’s a really stiff building.”

Amick, who also was a consultant on the Alberta, NIST and Purdue projects, said that on campuses heavily trafficked roads cause one of the greatest outdoor problems. Indoor troublemakers include elevators, doors and hallways. The solution may be to place the most sensitive labs away from those traffic ways. But some labs, such as a high-quality metrology lab at the Birck center, are so sensitive that they need to be built on special foundations and use thick concrete slabs on bearings to ensure little to no vibrations.

“Are they developing new technology or are they using existing technology?” Amick said. “The demarcation is the science they’re doing.” If a center is pushing the envelope and making new tools, for instance, then it may prefer to spend a lot on vibration-isolation technologies to ensure that subtle environmental factors don’t taint results.

Like vibrations, EMI issues can occur from external and internal factors, said Lou Vitale, president and chief engineer at VitaTech Engineering LLC. Common sources include transmission lines and electrical wiring, as well as moving vehicles and elevators that perturb the geomagnetic field. Even a chair scraping the floor or a neighbor’s computer may cause problems. Many of these factors can be identified and controlled, he said.

“If you do it right, you may not need shielding,” Vitale said. Of his “30 or 40 little secrets” he listed twisting wires, relocating switch gears, conduits, and electrical panels and spacing equipment. “The best solution is the separation of sources.”

Sometimes it is as simple as working at times when EMI and vibration sources are idle. At some facilities, researchers know to conduct sensitive experiments in the evening or nighttime hours.

The ultimate goal is to avoid retrofitting a facility after it is up and running. Haswell said the National Institute for Nanotechnology dodged a bullet when planners realized that researchers would be demanding access to powerful computers. Builders needed to compensate for the heat the computers would produce by doubling the cooling capacity in certain areas.

“Fortunately we could squeeze it in,” Haswell said. “It was an expensive change but we had to do it.”