Nano-nation

A decade ago, Cornell University researchers showcased the wonders of a nano-sized world by carving a 10-micrometer-long Fender Stratocaster, a guitar the size of a single cell, out of crystalline silicon.

Now, a UC Davis researcher has put his stamp on nanotechnology by coming up with new nano-scale sensors that could help food-safety agents find toxins in food or help engineers test for pollutants in soil in a cheap, easy and environmentally friendly way. On Feb. 7, the journal Nanotechnology published the details of mechanical and aeronautical engineering professor Ian Kennedy’s nano-creation.

Kennedy builds particles about 100-200 nanometers in size (a single sheet of paper is 100,000 nanometers thick) that are both magnetic and luminescent.

Instead of mixing materials and solvents in a beaker to get nano-particles to drop out of the solution, Kennedy sprayed raw materials through a flame and collected the dried, burnt up bits, which are his nano-sensors.

The sensors can stick to things and identify their whereabouts: bioterrorism agents such as ricin or botulinum toxin in food, precursors to cancer in the body, and bioremediation bacteria in soil that can help remove pollutants. When subjected to magnets or lasers, the particles can light up and be moved around, letting scientists measure the substance the particles latch on to.

According to Kennedy, nanotechnology has enjoyed a research boom in the last decade. The National Science Foundation reported a seven-fold increase—from $432 million in 1997 to $3 billion in 2003—in worldwide government funding for nanotechnology research and development. On February 5, President George W. Bush allotted $390 million for NSF’s nanotechnology research, a 4.5 percent increase from the 2007 proposal.

But advances in fundamental research alone won’t cut it, Kennedy said. Nanotechnology must move out of the laboratory and into the private sector.

“If we don’t see some products actually generating some significant revenue for companies, the whole thing might die out,” Kennedy said. “So in 20 years time, we’ll either be out of business or we’ll have some real things out there that people are using every day.”

Kennedy and a few other professors and post-doctoral researchers are applying for small-business grants from the federal government to fund “Synthia,” the company they formed under the guidance of venture capitalists in Sacramento.

“Professors really aren’t very good at business,” Kennedy said. “But we would like to see the technology actually being used.”

Synthia aims to produce a cheap, battery-operated, suitcase-sized instrument that uses the sensors to detect things like genetic mutations in blood and saliva samples at the doctor’s office. Kennedy said it will take about three years to come up with a prototype.

Atul Parikh, a UC Davis associate professor of applied science who uses nanoparticles to study motion on a cell’s surface, agrees that finding applications for nanotechnology is urgent.

“It’s very critical. We are in a renaissance right now,” Parikh said. “Nanotechnology could serve as an umbrella within which to discover a lot of things we care about.”

But even if researchers don’t develop an application that dominates the market, Parikh thinks nanotechnology still will attract funding—even if not for “nano-guitars.”

“Right now, we’re excited to shrink everything—10 years from now, it might be a more sober application,” he said.

UC Davis interdisciplinary sciences professor Alexandra Navrotsky, who examines why structures including nano-materials form the way they do, is optimistic about nanotechnology’s movement to the marketplace.

“Nanotechnology is so many different things. Almost certainly, some fraction of those things will be successful,” she said.

In a timely mix of fact and fiction, Michael Crichton’s science-fiction novel Prey tells the story of self-sustaining, self-replicating nano-bots that try to take over the world. The nano-bots escape from a company cutting corners under the pressure to raise money from venture capitalists.

Although all three professors think that the alarmist plot in Prey is unlikely to occur in real life, Navrotsky thinks that the book raises a red flag for the public. “The tendency is to oversell items and to not worry about if [they have] harmful effects. It’s a good thing if [the book] wakes us up to these things.”

“Scientists will have to do a better job at shedding some of the unreasonable fears surrounding this technology, as well as describing what real risks are,” Parikh said.

Kennedy, who teaches a freshman seminar called “Nanotechnology: Promise and Problems”—Prey is required reading—adds that it’s up to the public to influence the progress of nanotechnology. “If people are not going to become Michael Crichtons, they need to be informed and involved.”