It's all about being small
Atlanta Business Chronicle - by Julie Bryant Staff Writer
On the other end of Georgia Tech researcher Shawn Davis' microscope lies relief for people who go squeamish at the mere sight of a hypodermic needle.
For three years, Davis and a team of scientists led by principal researcher Mark Prausnitz have been creating a needle so tiny that a regular injection of medicine could be delivered without so much as the slightest prick.
Outside of Prausnitz's lab, some 50 Georgia Tech faculty members are toiling over their own miniature developments -- hoping to take part in a very big scientific movement known as nanoscience or nanotechnology.
Scientists, once viewed as nano-Pollyannas, promise that nanotechnology will bring about previously unfathomable scientific breakthroughs.
Sensing what has become a global competition to develop these products, the federal government and universities such as Georgia Tech have suddenly gotten serious about funding nanoscience.
In his 2002 budget request, President George W. Bush earmarked more than $518 million for nanotechnology research across the country -- nearly $100 million more than was approved last year.
Meanwhile, Georgia Tech has ponied up its own significant nanoinvestment, shoveling millions of dollars in recent years into nanotechnology research projects and plans for a nanofabrication lab, where industrial nanomaterials will be developed.
"Nanotechnology is predicted to be the next industrial revolution," said Zhong L. Wang, director of Georgia Tech's new Center for Nanoscience and Nanotechnology. "Atlanta is a high-tech city, and it has the potential to be the leader in nanotechnology."
Only a few years ago "nano" was a dirty word. Now everybody wants to be part of a nano-something, said Richard H. Smith, director of forecasts in science, technology and engineering for the Washington, D.C., futures think tank, Coates and Jarratt Inc.
The prefix nano actually stands for one billionth of something, a meter, for example. One nanometer is one-billionth of a meter.
Scientists working in the field of nanotechnology are simply working on an extremely miniaturized -- or nano -- scale.
At that microscopic level, scientists have slipped into the realm of manipulating atoms and molecules, where standard physics and laws of gravity need not apply.
The way that atoms and molecules get organized into patterns determines important properties in materials, such as how well the material conducts electricity.
Using nanotechnology, scientists already believe they may have developed a material that could soon replace silicon, said Georgia Tech's Davis.
Apply nanoscience to medicine and suddenly you have new ways to make drugs and vaccines or devices that can detect abnormal bodily functions.
At Clark Atlanta University, researchers are developing nanoscale sensors that could be used to detect pollutants or even glucose levels in diabetics, said Sunnie Aburime, an associate professor in environmental engineering.
Aburime is also the point person for the university's involvement in a new nanobiotechnology center headed by Cornell University. Collaborative groups of researchers and faculty from five universities, including Clark Atlanta, are working on a handful of projects through the center.
`Self-assemblers'
Right now, we have scientists working in the very infant stages of nanoscience, Smith said. In the near-term, scientists will be able make new materials, but in the future those materials will take on lifelike qualities, able to replicate themselves.
So-called self-assemblers are the holy grail for nanoscientists like Ralph C. Merkle, a principal fellow at Texas-based Zyvex, which bills itself as the first molecular nanotechnology company. Merkle has said he plans to build the first self-replicating device.
Zyvex may be the first true nano-start-up, but it shares a stage with nearly 100 companies claiming to at least be dabbling in nanotech. Among those companies are IBM Corp. (NYSE: IBM), Lucent Technologies Inc. (NYSE: LU), 3M (NYSE: MMM) and Nanogen Inc. (Nasdaq: NGEN).
In Georgia only a few companies are working in nanotech-related areas, including MicroCoating Technologies Inc. of Chamblee and EM Industries Inc. of Savannah.
Initially these companies could turn a profit by selling nanomaterials, such as incredibly strong nanotubes, to manufacturers, Smith said, but right now nobody's making any money.
And Georgia is still just a nanoblip on the radar screen. States such as Texas, home of Rice University's Center for Nanoscale Science and Technology, and California, where nanotech's notables hold court, are mapping the future of nanoscience.
Most nanotech projects won't be out of the lab for another two to 10 years, Smith said. As for nanotech companies, "I don't think we know who is going to survive at this stage," he said.
Reach Bryant at jbryant@bizjournals.com.
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