Nanotechnology Lawyer & Attorney : Porter Wright Morris & Arthur : Nanotechnology Law Report - Germanium nanobead image provided by UT-Battelle, which manages Oak Ridge National Laboratory for the Department of Energy

TheSwedish Royal Academy of Sciences, in accordance with the will of Afred Nobel, announced the winners of the 2010 Nobel Prize in Physics on Tuesday October 5, 2010. As most people have heard by now, the winners were Russian expatriates Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov , both Professors at the UK's University of Manchester.  Professors Geim and Novoselov were cited for their discovery of graphene, using Scotch tape. Graphene, according to an article in the New York Times:

. . .is a form of carbon in which the atoms are arranged in a flat hexagon lattice like microscopic chicken wire, a single atom thick. It is not only the thinnest material in the world, but also one of the strongest and hardest.

Among its other properties, graphene is able to conduct electricity as well as copper does and to conduct heat better than any other known material, and it is practically transparent. Physicists say that it could eventually rival silicon as a basis for computer chips, serve as a sensitive pollution-monitoring material, improve flat-screen televisions, and enable the creation of new materials and novel tests of quantum weirdness.

Among the forms of graphene that are of most interest to the nanotechnology field are graphene nanoribbons. Graphene is also related to carbon nanotubes and "buckeyballs".

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The Johns Hopkins Institute for NanoBioTechnology  in Baltimore recently received a 5 year $13.6 million grant from the National Cancer Institute to establish the Center of Cancer Nanotechnology Excellence. The center, under the co-direction of  Professors Peter Searson and  Martin Pomper,  will initially focus on four research projects:

1) the application of quantum dots and silica super paramagnetic particles to screen bodily fluids for the presence of cancer indicators

2) testing for the possible us if nanocurcumin in the treatment of tumors that have developed in abdominal organs. Curcumin is derived from the spice turmeric. In it's larger form, curcumin has been shown to be effective when used as part of chemotherapy, but is difficult for the bloodstream to absorb, while nanocurcumin is more easily absorbed into the bloodstream

3) Development of a non-invasive method of monitoring the effectiveness of vaccines

4) Development of methods using mucus penetrating nanoparticles to deliver chemotherapy treatments directly to small cell lung cancer tissues.

Other projects will be added over the course of the five year period.

As part of an effort to bring products that emerge from these research areas to market, the Center will also have a Cancer Nanomedicine Commercialization Working Group, headed by John Fini, Johns Hopkins University's Director of Intellectual Property.

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