Do You Know Nano?

The Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies is a fast-paced science policy group within the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, DC. The Project serves as a neutral, nonpartisan forum for study, discussion, and debate of the issues surrounding nanotechnology policy. The Project has become a reference point for information and analysis of these issues as it strives to bring the voices of policymakers, industry, and academia together to promote a fair and rational consideration of the risks and benefits of nanotechnology.

The Project is seeking qualified interns for Fall/Winter 2009. The Project’s internship program provides graduate and undergraduate level students an exciting opportunity to work the world of science policy and learn about the rapidly expanding field of nanotechnology. Past interns have worked with former officials of the EPA, FDA, and NIOSH on analyses of research and regulatory priorities at those agencies, and helped coordinate focus groups and national polls, prepare congressional testimony, compile the largest and most comprehensive database available of consumer products containing nanotechnologies—and worked on many other projects. For more information on the internship program at the Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies, please see the Intern Position Announcement. Questions? Email nano@wilsoncenter.org with Intern in the subject line. Applications are due by August 22, 2009.

findNano App Puts Nanotech in Your Pocket

WASHINGTON – The Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies (PEN) has developed findNano, an application for Apple’s iPhone and iPod Touch that lets users discover and determine whether consumer products are nanotechnology-enabled. Nanotechnology, the emerging technology of using materials by engineering them at an incredibly small scale, has applications ranging from consumer electronics to improved drug delivery systems.

findNano allows users to browse an inventory of more than 1,000 nanotechnology-enabled consumer products, from sporting goods to food products and electronics to toys, using the iPhone and iPod Touch. Using the built-in camera, iPhone users can even submit new nanotech products to be included in future inventory updates.

The new application makes PEN’s unique Consumer Products Inventory more accessible for today’s consumers. The inventory, which was launched in 2006, is the leading source of information on manufacturer-identified nanotechnology consumer products around the world.

“The Consumer Products Inventory provides valuable insight into the world of nanotech consumer products, and now it’s even easier to access because of findNano,” says PEN Research Associate Patrick Polischuk. “This innovative tool satisfies the needs of citizen scientists, tech-savvy consumers, and those who are merely curious about whether products contain nanomaterials.”

The number of nanotech products in the inventory has risen from approximately 200 in 2006 to more than 1,000 today. But this is most likely an underestimate of the number of products using nanotechnology available worldwide. To help develop better estimates of the number of nano-based products in commerce, the iPhone app allows users to submit information on new products, including product name and where the product can be purchased.

Using findNano, users can take or select a photo of a possible nanotech product and submit it for inclusion in the PEN inventory. This feature will help consumers, researchers, and policymakers determine how—and where—nanotechnologies are entering the marketplace.

findNano is available as a free download for the iPhone and iPod Touch, and can be found in the iTunes App Store or at nanotechproject.org/iphone.

Reinventing Technology Assessment for the 21st Century

WASHINGTON—A new report from the Science and Technology Innovation Program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars defines the criteria for a new technology assessment function in the United States. The report, Reinventing Technology Assessment: A 21st Century Model, emphasizes the need to incorporate citizen-participation methods to complement expert analysis. Government policymakers, businesses, non-governmental organizations, and citizens need such analysis to capably navigate the technology-intensive world in which we now live.

The U.S. Congress set a global precedent in 1972 when it created an Office of Technology Assessment (OTA), but then reversed course in 1995 by shutting down the OTA. In the meantime, 18 European Technology Assessment agencies are flourishing and have pioneered important new methods, including Participatory Technology Assessment (pTA). By educating and engaging laypeople, pTA is unique in enabling decision-makers to learn their constituents’ informed views regarding emerging developments in science and technology. pTA also deepens the social and ethical analysis of technology. European pTA methods have been adapted, tested, and proven in the U.S. at least 16 times by university-based groups and independent nonprofit organizations.

“We style ourselves as living in a ‘technological society’ and an ‘information age,’” notes report author Dr. Richard Sclove, “yet we lack adequate information about – of all things! – the broad implications of science and technology.”

As the pace of technological change quickens and the Obama Administration moves forward on its Open Government Initiative, the time is ripe to institutionalize a robust national TA capability incorporating both expert and participatory TA methods. The Internet and social networking capacities make it possible to organize such an endeavor on a distributed, agile and open basis, harnessing collaborative efficiencies and supporting broad public engagement.

“In the 15 years since OTA was closed, TA has progressed significantly in Europe. It is time for the U.S. to institutionalize a serious, continuous and nonpartisan capability to assess the broad social, ethical, legal, and economic impacts of emerging science and technology in areas such as nanotechnology, biotechnology, and earth systems engineering,” said David Rejeski, who directs the Wilson Center program.

In the report, Dr. Sclove recommends creating a nationwide Expert & Citizen Assessment of Science & Technology (ECAST) network that will combine the skills of nonpartisan policy research organizations with the research strengths of universities and the public outreach and education capabilities of science museums. Founding partners in ECAST include the Science and Technology Innovation Program at the Wilson Center,, the Boston Museum of Science, Arizona State University, ScienceCheerleader, and the Loka Institute.

Report author Richard Sclove, Ph.D. is founder and senior fellow of the Loka Institute, a nonprofit organization dedicated to making science and technology responsive to democratically decided priorities.

The report can be downloaded at http://www.wilsoncenter.org/techassessment

Nanotech-enabled Consumer Products Top the 1,000 Mark

Over 1,000 nanotechnology-enabled products have been made available to consumers around the world, according to the Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies (PEN). The most recent update to the group’s three-and-a-half-year-old inventory reflects the increasing use of the tiny particles in everything from conventional products like non-stick cookware and lighter, stronger tennis racquets, to more unique items such as wearable sensors that monitor posture.

“The use of nanotechnology in consumer products continues to grow rapidly,” says PEN Director David Rejeski. “When we launched the inventory in March 2006 we only had 212 products. If the introduction of new products continues at the present rate, the number of products listed in the inventory will reach close to 1,600 within the next two years. This will provide significant oversight challenges for agencies like the Food and Drug Administration and Consumer Product Safety Commission, which often lack any mechanisms to identify nanotech products before they enter the marketplace.”

Health and fitness items continue to dominate the PEN inventory, representing 60 percent of products listed. More products are based on nanoscale silver—used for its antimicrobial properties—than any other nanomaterial; 259 products (26 percent of the inventory) use silver nanoparticles. The updated inventory represents products from over 24 countries, including the US, China, Canada, and Germany. This update also identifies products that were previously available, but for which there is no current information.

The release of the updated inventory coincides with a public hearing on the agenda and priorities of the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) where project director David Rejeski testified. The CPSC, with a staff of fewer than 400 employees, oversees the safety of 15,000 types of consumer products.

Andrew Maynard, chief science advisor for PEN, noted that “the CPSC deserves credit for focusing on nanotechnologies. The resources available to the agency to address health and safety issues are negligible compared to the over $1.5 billion federal investment in nanotechnology research and development.”

The inventory is available at http://www.nanotechproject.org/inventories/consumer/

The PEN consumer products inventory includes products that have been identified by their manufacturer or a credible source as being nanotechnology-based. This update identifies products that were previously sold, but which may no longer be available. It remains the most comprehensive and widely used source of information on nanotechnology-enabled consumer products in the world.

Download project director David Rejeski’s testimony before the CPSC here.

nanoscience and nanotechnology

Nanoscience, nanotechnology, or nanotech, are all used to describe the same dynamic new field of applied science. Simply put, nanotechnology is the study and development of components measuring 100 nanometers (one billionth of a meter) or less. At these dimensions, matter begins to exhibit different characteristics. Aluminum explodes on contact with the air. Carbon can become a one-dimensional material, and conduct electricity better than copper.

The concept of nanoscience was first broached by Dr. Richard Feynman, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist who helped develop the atom bomb and did much to make physics popularly comprehensible through a series of lectures and books. In a 1959 speech that speculated on the immense potential of a conflux between biology and manufacturing, Dr. Feynman described the intricacy with which biological cells manufacture substances in natural bodies, and challenged his audience to “consider the possibility that we, too, can make a thing very small, which does what we want—that we can manufacture an object that maneuvers at that level.”

The actual word “nanotechnology” was coined by Tokyo Science University Professor Norio Taniguchi in 1974, to describe the manufacture of materials with at the level of a billionth of a meter. The term was popularized by controversial researcher Dr. K. Eric Drexler in a book that proposed the idea of manufacturing an “assembler” of nanoscale matter.

The applications of nanotechnology have been both expansive and prosaic. The implications, however, are still under scrutiny. While it is exciting to see products of startling efficiency and low cost result from this technology, and to speculate on the near possibility of cures for cancer, further research is essential to development this emergent technology in its most beneficial form possible.

Biotechnology Companies

Biotechnology is a practice as simple, and as ancient, as brewing beer or making cheese. In a practical sense, biotechnology is nothing more than humans putting to use the natural activity of microorganisms. But in the last twenty years, biotechnology has become one of the world’s most rapidly growing industries, as researchers dig out the ever unfolding capabilities of a single cell.

The preponderance of biotechnology companies are focused on medical science. These corporations not only produce medication, but also do heavy research into the environmental and genetic factors for disease. Their focus on disease prevention powers them forward in the medical business, and the top biotechnology companies may well outpace their pharmaceutical counterparts in as little as five years.

Biotechnology companies also plays a part in environmental science. By manipulating materials at the cellular level, solar energy companies produce receptors that will in time eliminate the need for fuel-based electricity. Similarly, genetic engineering has produced oil-utilizing microorganisms that can be spread over the surface of oceanic oil spills, simplifying the clean-up and the restoration of the ecosystem. Biofertilizers and disease-resistant plants are being developed to replace the toxic chemical pesticides used in conventional agriculture.

The intricacy of cellular function also serves as a model for improving existing industrial processes. Biotechnology has been the key to streamlining chemical manufacturing, decreasing water usage and waste generation in industry, and finding uses for traditional industrial waste.

Nanotechnology in Medicine

Nanoscience has, since its conception, been intertwined with medical research. The science is based on the replication and substance manufacturing of cells. Nanotechnology began as an endeavor to mimic the cell’s amazing self-sufficiency, and has since become an industry that strives to improve existing products in every sector through the manipulation of matter on the cellular level. This is most poignantly seen in the application of nanotechnology back to the medical field, where it began.

In one such application, nanoparticles of substances such as heat, light, or drugs, are engineered to have an attraction to diseased cells. This allows for direct treatment of diseased cells with minimal damage to healthy cells.

There is ongoing research, testing the efficacy of delivering chemotherapy drugs via nanoparticles directly to cancer cells.

Another example is the activation of nanoparticles by x-rays, to generate cancer-destroying electrons. This application would replace radiation therapy and circumvent its disastrous effects on the body’s healthy tissue.

Other developments include the use of nanoparticles to stimulate the production of cartilage in damaged joints, or the immune response against viruses.

Disease prevention is another important use of nanotechnology in medicine. Quantum Dots, an application still in its testing phase, may be used for finding cancerous tumors and for performing diagnostic tests. Nanocrystalline silver is one of the earliest forms of medical nanotechnology, used as an antimicrobial wound treatment.

Finally, nanotechnology is making vast improvements in the tools that physicians and medical scientists depend upon. From high-powered microscopes and imaging technology, to refined surgery implements, nanotechnology makes for cleaner, faster and more precise medicine.