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Mar. 21, 2006 – This July, delegates to an international conference will meet in Geneva, Switzerland, to consider recommendations aimed at improving the risk governance of nanotechnology. The conference, sponsored by the International Risk Governance Council (IRGC), is designed to improve the understanding and assessment of risk issues and design innovative, efficient, and balanced governance strategies.

In advance of the conference, scientists have been working on a comprehensive survey designed to provide a portrait of nanotechnology governance across 27 economies from around the globe. Experts from industry, academia, government and non-governmental organizations gathered in Geneva in January for a workshop to develop strategies and to review the IRGC’s “Survey on Nanotechnology Governance.”

“The report was authored by Mike Roco, a senior adviser for the National Science Foundation, a federal agency that funds research in the United States, and Emily Litten, nanotechnology project manager for IRGC, an independent foundation in Switzerland. The Swiss Federal Agency for Development and Cooperation, the U.S. Department of State and Swiss Reinsurance Co. (Swiss Re) funded the survey.

“Societal relationships and the governance of science may either accelerate or dampen the development of emerging technologies, in particular nanotechnology,” Roco said. “Nanotechnology operates at the first level of organization of atoms and molecules, so the implications of its development will be broader than in other emerging technologies, both positive and with potentially unexpected consequences. For this reason, nanotechnology has to be addressed in the cultural, economic and societal context.”

Governance of nanotechnology is in a race with development that has accelerated as applications such as nanocoatings become more sophisticated. Those applications may soon be leapfrogged by second-generation “active nanostructures,” such as nanobiotech assemblies, according to Roco.

“In the last two or three years, industry has entered nanotechnology in a significant way,” Roco said. “It has become a subject of international competition and the public is a lot more aware of its development.”

The Roco-Litten report targets deficits in nanotechnology governance. Its recommendations fall into four categories of risk research, stakeholder engagement, risk communication, and governance approaches.

Should a “supranational” governance policy for nanotech products — one that involves a number of nations — be adopted by the IRGC, it would have to overcome traditional cultural differences to R&D in the U.S. and Europe. The U.S. operates on a “risk assessment” model that assumes all risks cannot be known in advance; Europe is more likely to embrace a “principle of precaution” approach that seeks to discover all the consequences of nanotechnology prior to its widespread use.

Prior to the IRGC’s July meeting, Roco said, the group hopes to arrive at a consensus on the types of governance applicable to each stakeholder group and issue final recommendations by the fall of 2006. Though an international scheme of governance is destined to encounter nationalist, competitive appetites for nanotech development, a U.S.-based environmentalist said she believes it’s worth the effort. “Markets respond to demand, but they also respond to rejection,” said Jennifer Sass, senior scientist in health and environmental programs with Natural Resources Defense Council in Washington, D.C. “Good governance approaches are consistent with good marketing and business strategies. It’s essential they go hand in hand.”

Mar. 21, 2006 – BioForce Nanosciences Holdings Inc. (OTC.BB: BFNH) today announced that it has closed a $6 million private placement of restricted common shares at $1.50 a share.

BioForce’s core technology is the NanoArrayer System, a proprietary instrumentation and software tool for the life sciences. The Ames, Iowa-based company is also commercializing a patented diagnostic device called the ViriChip System, which is used for detection and identification of multiple viruses and other pathogens simultaneously on a single chip.

Mar. 21, 2006 – The University at Albany’s College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering on Monday received nearly $2 million to fund development of three-dimensional integrated circuits and to recruit a top researcher from the West Coast.

The Times Union in Albany reported that the money comes from the New York State Office of Science, Technology and Academic Research, or NYSTAR. The goal, said Russell W. Bessette, NYSTAR’s executive director, is to help the technology progress to the point where it will create new jobs.

A portion of the funds will pay for the creation of a new Consortium for Hyper-Integration and Packaging that will research and develop the three-dimensional circuits, aligning and stacking 300-millimeter-diameter wafers to fabricate the semiconductors in a nearly 1-acre clean room at the Albany NanoTech complex, which includes the college and private and academic research facilities.

The consortium received $1.14 million for its work, which will involve more than 30 researchers. The remaining $750,000 was used to help recruit Patrick Naulleau from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California. Naulleau will focus on extreme-ultraviolet lithography, using light of extremely short wavelengths to etch ever-smaller components and circuits on a wafer.

Mar. 21, 2006 – U.S. Secretary of Commerce Carlos M. Gutierrez announced Monday the launch of a state-of-the-art center for collaborative nanotechnology research at the Department of Commerce’s National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). Scientists from U.S. companies, universities and government will focus on overcoming major technical obstacles to cost-effective manufacturing of products made with components the size of atoms and molecules. The center will be based in NIST’s Advanced Measurement Laboratory.

NIST’s Center for Nanoscale Science and Technology features a growing research staff that will blend many types of specialized expertise: physics and chemistry to mechanical engineering and computer science. CNST also houses a Nanofabrication Facility, or Nanofab. The clean room is equipped with an array of state-of-the-art tools for making, testing and characterizing prototype nanoscale devices and materials. These instruments will be available to collaborators and to outside users.

Under the American Competitiveness Initiative, the president proposed a $20 million increase in funding for NIST’s nanotechnology research in fiscal year 2007. Part of the proposed increase would be used to speed the ramp-up of CNST research and services.

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Mar. 20, 2006 – BASF, the world’s largest chemical company, is devoting $221 million to nanotechnology research and development between 2006 and 2008. The German corporation is opening up a new nanotech center in Singapore this year as well. The investments are part of an expansion of its global R&D activities, with nanotech one of five “growth clusters” that BASF will build over the next two years to ensure it stays competitive.

“Nanotechnology gives us the possibility to innovate, especially in a hard market like chemicals,” said Elmar Kessenich, manager of nanotechnology coordination at BASF. “Most of the chemical market is commodities, so if you really want to be competitive, you have to add value. You can do that with nanotechnology.”

Besides nanotechnology, BASF is concentrating on energy management, raw material change, plant biotechnology and white biotechnology. (White biotechnology uses biological systems and techniques to make cleaner or more energy efficient industrial processes.) All together, the five areas will receive $982 million.

The list of nanotech areas BASF plans to support with the cash infusion is long. It includes new products for the automotive and construction markets, cosmetics, printed electronics, electronic components and energy management systems such as fuel cells, OLED displays, and a variety of surfaces, such as scratch-resistant coatings and dirt-repellent paint.

BASF says its R&D strategy will enable it to stay at the forefront of materials innovation. While nanotechnology is still in its early stages regarding widespread application, even conservative estimates put growth rates at 10 percent a year and an end-user market size at $614 billion in 2010. BASF expects the market for its nanosystems and components to be between $61 billion and $74 billion in four years.

“It’s a key technology for us, since it helps us meet challenges of the global market not only with new products but also with old ones,” Kessenich said. As an example, he cited the company’s Ultradur High Speed product, an engineered plastic for electronic components. While a previous version of the product had been on the market for several years, BASF added nanoparticles to the mix, which brought down manufacturing costs and increased performance.

Part of BASF’s more intensive focus on nanotechnology is a new research center in Singapore, the company’s first nanotech facility to be opened in Asia. Set up to open at the end of the first quarter of 2006, the center will concentrate on nanostructured surface modifications, such as controlling the hydrophobic or hydrophilic characteristics of a surface. Hydrophobic molecules shun water; hydrophilic molecules have an affinity for water.

The facility will employ about 20 people, including six researchers, technicians and post-docs, with most of them coming from the region. BASF chose Singapore because of the city-state’s good infrastructure, its location and the fact that intellectual property protection is better there than in China. That’s “a prerequisite for any R&D project,” said Harald Lauke, president of the company’s Asia-Pacific division.

According to Kessenich, Asia is focusing more of its attention on nanotech. “There are a lot of interesting nano startups there,” he said. “At international conferences we see increasing numbers of good researchers from Asia presenting their results.”

Asia in general is also becoming a more important market for BASF, which is interested in getting a firm foothold there. BASF is not completely new to Asia; the company opened a chemical production facility in Nanjing, China in 2005. A presence in the region will also help BASF recruit Asian chemists, since the company could offer them a position closer to home instead of asking them to move to another continent.

BASF’s strategy appears to be on target, since Asia as a recruiting ground is looking more fertile all the time. A Georgia Institute of Technology study found that as more Asians earn doctorates, they increasingly apply them to Asian — not U.S.-based — careers. In the meantime, the number of U.S. citizens earning advanced degrees continues to decline.

The investment advisory group Innovest gave BASF good marks in the nanotechnology index it published in the fall. It highlighted the company as having high growth potential relative to its competitors, especially regarding transparency and addressing potential concerns like product safety.

“It’s not all sunshine. Some of their products are still in the commodity range and they do have a lot of risk,” said Heather Langsner, author of the report. “But they have paid attention to nanotech risk factors and will most likely succeed in sensitive markets.”

Mar. 20, 2006 – The Wake Forest University Center for Nanotechnology and Molecular Materials has been selected to receive a $5 million Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative (MURI) program grant from the Department of Defense to develop new negative index of refraction materials that have potential for a range of uses in military and civilian life.

The five-year grant teams researchers from Wake Forest’s nanotechnology center with Kent State University to develop these new “negative index” or “left-handed” materials. The new and unusual materials show promise for use in high-performance aircraft. Researchers anticipate that negative index materials will improve surveillance and communications capabilities, improving connectivity between air and land in the battle space.

Negative index materials bend light in the opposite direction from normal optical materials like glass. These properties are built into the materials using nano-engineering. The materials offer a wide variety of applications, such as flat, apertureless lenses, “perfect” lenses with sub-wavelength resolution, novel antennas, new beam steering devices, sensor protection strategies, novel band gap materials and high density optical storage.

By Candace Stuart

Mar. 17, 2006 – Vicki Colvin has a question for colleagues who study nanoparticles and how they may affect people and the environment. “Exactly what do you mean by size?”

When chemists, toxicologists or other researchers report the dimensions of an engineered nanoparticle, are they measuring the core, the core plus a coating, or perhaps the core, a coating and attachments that help nanoparticles adhere to cells? What happens after exposure to water, or to blood?

“We want to know how particle size changes as it marches through the body,” Colvin said at a workshop designed to identify roadblocks to nanobiotech commercialization. Size, composition, shape and other characteristics help distinguish the scores of different engineered nanoparticles that exist today. They also help determine their wanted — and unwanted — properties. “Can I take a material that is active (potentially harmful) and make it safe?” she asked. “How can I engineer a safe nanoparticle?”

Colvin, a chemistry and chemical engineering professor and director of the Center for Biological and Environmental Nanotechnology at Rice University, is not alone in her quest. The federal agencies that may decide to impose environmental, health and workplace regulations on industry face a mishmash of toxicological data that often lacks basic information about nanoparticle size, surface area and other characteristics.

Toxicologists and other scientists studying nanomaterials say these gaps make it difficult if not impossible to compare studies and get an accurate picture of how nanoparticles interact with the body.

Reporting basics like size will go a long way toward ensuring that regulations are based on sound rather than spotty science, they say. Scientists will be able to see the relationships between a nanoparticle’s size or surface area or charge, for instance, and how it behaves in the body to predict which traits could be harmful. That knowledge may help them design benign nanoparticles.

“It was kind of where dioxins and PCBs were in the ’60s,” said Nigel Walker, a staff scientist with the National Toxicology Program (NTP) of his initiation into nanotechnology about three years ago. NTP, part of the National Institutes of Health’s environmental sciences division, has launched a program to evaluate potential health hazards of nanomaterials. Dioxins, a byproduct of combustion processes, and polychlorinated biphenyls, an industrial chemical, were found to be cancer-causing pollutants that required costly cleanups once their toxicity was discovered.

“We introduced a technology without understanding the implications and then spent 30 years trying to eliminate or reduce the risk,” Walker said. He recognized that with nanotechnology he and other scientists had an opportunity to spot troublesome nanoparticles early in the commercial process, before they cause damage. “Now we can make sure we can prevent that. We can choose the kinds of experiments that reduce the risk. We can be at the forefront.”

Their size makes nanoparticles promising candidates for medical applications. They are small enough to fit within cells and also can roam undetected by biological sentries such as the blood-brain barrier or the liver, according to Scott McNeil, director of the National Cancer Institute’s Nanotechnology Characterization Laboratory. As coordinator of pre-clinical characterization of nanomaterials, McNeil is helping the NCI in its goal of developing nano-based therapies and diagnostics for cancer.

His team has already begun tests on gold nanoparticles, liposomes, dendrimers and buckyballs. Each nanoparticle offers benefits: Branch-shaped dendrimers and spherical liposomes can transport drugs into cells. Contrast agents can be put in the hollow centers of buckyballs for tumor imaging. Gold particles known as nanoshells can attach to cancer cells, and when exposed to harmless near ultraviolet light, heat up and kill the cells.

“These can leach into tumors because they are smaller than the pores of the blood vessel wall,” McNeil said. Nanoparticles are also smaller than the filter mechanisms in the spleen and liver that capture and eliminate other foreign matter. That leaves nanoparticles free to circulate until they find their cancer target.

Nanoparticles pose a risk, though, if they are or become toxic and the body’s defense systems can’t detect and eliminate them, McNeil and Walker pointed out. For medical applications — where tissue is deliberately exposed to nanoparticles — it is critical to understand how cells react to the presence of various types and forms of nanoparticles during various stages of exposure. Unintended exposure through the skin, lungs and other pathways also needs to be considered.

“Size will be a critical component for toxicology,” Walker said. Studies on ultrafine particles, which are typically a byproduct of combustion, suggest a link between particle size and toxicity, for instance. “But size is contextual. How do you report size? What kind of methodology do you use? What is the tool?”

The Nanotechnology Characterization Laboratory is collaborating with the Food and Drug Administration and the National Institute of Standards and Technology to find methods for analyzing nanomaterials in various stages: before exposure to any biological environment, exposure in test tubes and other in vitro environments, and exposure within living organisms, or in vivo environments. They accept applications for materials from manufacturers on a quarterly basis, but will only take materials that can be produced in sufficient quantities.

“We don’t accept material for characterization unless they can produce a gram of material. We don’t want to have multiple industrial batches,” McNeil said. Batches can vary in purity, for instance. “We want to make sure we have the same stuff in the lab as in the animal.”

McNeil’s team follows a methodical system to plot the physical attributes of each type of nanoparticle. But nanoparticles rarely are used in their natural, or “naked,” form. Many nanomaterials that function in the dry world of chemistry need to be “dressed” to work in the wet world of biology. They also often have antibodies or other biomolecules attached to their surface that complement molecules on a cancer cell’s surface. The attachments help the nanoparticles latch onto target tumor cells.

“We attempt to have a baseline characterization so we can have some familiarity with that category of nanoparticle,” McNeil said. Each time it is dressed, or functionalized, it is studied again. “Each one would be unique in its behavior. Functionalizing it changes its properties.”

Designers can use the ability to alter properties in their favor. A nanoparticle’s surface charge can make it less biocompatible, for instance. Adding a coating that neutralizes charge may solve the problem, though. In what McNeil characterizes as a possible trend, his team noticed naked gold nanoparticles get larger when placed in plasma. To better understand gold nanoparticles’ blood-contact properties, they plan to add molecules that could stop proteins from absorbing on the surface. That also may be a way to keep the gold nanoparticles from growing larger.

The National Toxicology Program is studying buckyballs and carbon nanotubes, semiconductor nanocrystals called quantum dots and metal oxides such as the sunscreen ingredient titanium dioxide. It is developing a program based on dendrimers, too. NTP, which agreed to take on the initiative at Colvin’s request, allocated between $1.5 million and $2 million in the past year for the program, Walker said.

Walker said the NTP is more or less starting from scratch after scouring the toxicology literature and finding it lacking. But accurately measuring nanoparticles in their various states may prove difficult. Microscopy tools for measuring an electron-dense nanoparticle may not be as suitable for gauging less electron-dense coatings or attachments. Tools using probes may compress flexible structures.

Craig Prater, a fellow at Veeco Instruments who has been integral in the commercialization of several of its microscopy products, said today’s tools can adequately measure nanoparticle size, even in the wet world of biology. Prater helped launch Veeco’s nanobio atomic force microscope, the BioScope. The BioScope II, introduced in December, can be used to image molecules within living cells.

He’s also involved in a project with Dow Chemical Co. to develop ways to better understand nanoparticles’ structure-function relationships. The goal of the Veeco-Dow partnership is to provide a predictive mechanism that will allow manufacturers to efficiently design nanoparticles that perform exactly as desired.

“If we can understand the structure-function and surface chemistry connection to toxicity, that will help us accelerate the design of consistently safe nanoparticles,” Prater said. “All of the chemical companies and scientists take that responsibility seriously.”

But reliable predictions depend on sound data, and scientists like Walker, McNeil and Colvin warn that, for the most part, good fundamental information is not available now. The haphazard reporting of basic characteristics like size threatens to hamper commercialization. “We need to do a better job of describing material,” Walker said. “This will be a roadblock.”

In an effort to get consistency in nanoparticle reporting, Walker contacted funding agencies and editors of key scientific journals and asked that grants or acceptance of a paper be contingent on reporting basic information such as size and methodology. Colvin has been prodding the academic research community to agree to some accepted norms. McNeil hopes to develop voluntary standards for industries and toxicologists based on a consensus process. It’s the chance to avoid another dioxin or PCB incident.

“If we could provide the structure-activity tools,” Walker said, “then we could say (to nanoparticle designers), ‘You really don’t want to go there with this one.’ They could make an informed decision. The further we can get to providing that assessment upfront, the better it will be for everybody.”

Mar. 17, 2006 – Nanomix Inc., a nanotechnology company commercializing detection applications, announced it has signed a collaboration agreement with researchers at the University of California Berkeley to develop a novel electronic nose diagnostic device.

Nanomix said the agreement would enable it to leverage its proprietary Sensation detection platform and further enhance its product development portfolio in point-of-care detection applications. It involves joint development of a device for clinical diagnosis of disease directly in the physician’s office or outpatient clinic.

Point-of-care diagnosis with an electronic olfactory sensor system based on a detection array could provide multiple advantages versus traditional lab-based techniques in terms of speed, convenience, cost, and improved patient outcomes.

Mar. 16, 2006 – Nanometrics Inc. (Nasdaq: NANO), a supplier of advanced integrated and standalone metrology equipment to the semiconductor industry, announced that it has acquired privately-held Soluris Inc., an overlay metrology company headquartered in Concord, Mass.

Total consideration to purchase all the outstanding stock and to retire all the outstanding debt of Soluris was $7 million in an all-cash transaction.

Soluris was formed in 2003 through a management buyout of certain optical and electron metrology assets of the Schlumberger Ltd. semiconductor group. Their flagship product, the IVS 155, is a tool for 200mm semiconductor overlay and CD measurement. Soluris’ overlay equipment has been in the market for more than 20 years, with an installed base of over 150 systems worldwide.

The company also brings a compelling portfolio of intellectual property, including not only the overlay and CD measurement technology but also significant patents in the CD-SEM arena, according to a news release. Nanometrics’ acquisition of Soluris adds 37 employees in the U.S., Europe and Asia and is expected to contribute annual revenues of approximately $8 million to $10 million.

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Mar. 16, 2006 – At its maturity, experts say the science of nanotechnology could one day spur breakthrough cures for cancer and other diseases.

Until that long-awaited day, consumers are likely to experience nanotechnology in more pedestrian ways — perhaps by chewing chocolate-flavored gum or buying diamonds cultured in labs, not mined from the Earth.

Those are among hundreds of available consumer products being spawned as companies manipulate matter at the atomic level, according to The Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies, a Washington, D.C. initiative associated with the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.

The group last week released a products inventory containing descriptions of more than 200 consumer goods purportedly made with some type of nanotech process or nanomaterial.

“This is the face of nanotechnology,” project director David Rejeski, nodding to a modest assortment of nanotech-based products, told a gathering of reporters and researchers. “Nanotechnology isn’t about cures for cancer (yet), although that day is coming. But these are the artifacts that consumers can purchase in stores now.”

Those products include car wax, household cleaners, paints, tennis rackets and golf balls. Also included is a rash of products that are ingestible or that find their way into the human body through other means — and which are largely unregulated by government agencies.

Available online for free, the product inventory is designed to give consumers a glimpse into how pervasive nanotechnology is becoming in manufacturing, said Rejeski. Some of the 212 items were bought online directly from manufacturers by project officials. The products are grouped into eight broad categories, with health and fitness being the largest with about 125 products.

The list includes products from companies in 15 different countries, with U.S. manufacturers accounting for nearly 75 percent of all entries. It was compiled using English-only Internet searches of company Web sites, organizers said.

“The fact that we only did searches in English is one reason we believe there are far more products available than we included in the inventory. We hope to expand it to foreign language searches” for a more comprehensive listing over time, said Andrew Maynard, chief science advisor for the project, a partnership between the Wilson center and the Pew Charitable Trusts.

Useful Information?

Given the list’s main purpose is to educate consumers, project organizers say they did not analyze potential markets for the products, including whether or not customers even want them. Independent research groups were not invited to vet the list, nor were companies whose products appear in the inventory directly contacted for input.

Instead, project organizers relied on product descriptions gleaned from company Web sites, a fact they concede makes it difficult to accurately determine whether a manufacturing process reflects true nanotech applications. Complicating matters, they said, is the lack of a universally agreed-upon definition for nanotechnology.

“Our sense was that once we started talking to companies it would give them a chance to create their own definition (to determine whether or not they would be included on the list). We limited our inclusion of companies to those that were controlling matter on the nanometer level,” Maynard said.

Other nanotechnology sector experts say the group’s database of products is interesting but fails to break much new ground.

“What they’re really studying is how products are being marketed using the nanotechnology label,” said Christine Peterson, vice president of public policy for the Foresight Nanotech Institute, a Palo Alto, Calif., think tank that specializes in the sector.

The inventory provides few details on how nanomaterials are specifically used to fabricate products. For example, carbon, silver and silica are listed as the three most commonly used materials, although it is unclear from the descriptions if the molecules are contained in matrices or are fully dispersible.

A handful of products were dropped from consideration when it appeared companies were calling them nano-based as a marketing ploy, Maynard said, but when uncertainty surrounded an item “we erred on the side of including it rather than leaving it out.”

Red Flags Raised

In one sense, the group’s report could be viewed as a call for greater regulatory oversight, an issue bound up with federal funding. Many of the products in the inventory are intended for human consumption, either directly such as dietary supplements or indirectly in the form of lotions, sunscreens or cosmetics that get absorbed through the skin, raising possible health concerns.

“I think the government has to put more money and people into the regulatory side. This inventory shows that nanotechnology is larger than just a research issue now,” said Rejeski.

One of the companies included is Apollo Diamond, a Boston company that uses chemical vapor deposition of carbon to produce diamonds for jewelry and semiconductors. Bryant Linares, its chief executive officer, said the product inventory could be useful in shining the spotlight on the tremendous potential of nanotechnology.

“If the express purpose of this is to get people to see the power of building very small things, it will be a great tool. But if it’s going to be used for some hidden agenda or to pass new laws on use of nanomaterials, that would be problematic,” said Linares.

If nothing else, the list may stimulate debate about the federal government’s role in crafting stricter consumer safety regulations. Environmental activists also could find the information useful in framing questions about how industries safely dispose of waste materials generated from nanotech manufacturing.

“I think (the Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies) wants a higher profile for the fact that there are regulatory holes in some industries,” said Peterson. “If that’s what they accomplish, that’s fine.”

Not included on the list were products whose sole applications were for industry, such as advanced materials or thin films used to produce large commercial products.