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

This article originally appeared on the National Nanomanufacturing Network's InterNano website earlier today. It is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported.

Maxine Savitz[1] and Ed Penhoe[2] provided a recent presentation summarizing the highlights of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST)[3] report on the status of the US National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI) at a public meeting held at the National Academics on March 12, 2010.

Ms. Savitz provided a brief review at the beginning of the presentation regarding how, when, and why NNI was formed; its history from 2000 - 2010; and some of the participants in the PCAST review process. Participants included representatives from DuPont, IBM, A123 Systems, Nanocomp Technologies, Rice, Harvard, Caltech, Sandia National Labs, and the Woodrow Wilson Institute. Ms Savitz also explained that the group held two prior working meetings to solicit input from government agencies, the legislative and executive branches, as well as outside stakeholders. Finally, she explained that PCAST’s report has three major thematic areas: NNI program management; NNI output and work product; and NNI environmental, health, and safety programs and strategies.

Ed Penhoet then provided an update regarding NNI’s continued successes. He noted that the US is currently the world leader in nanotechnology and commercialization, but that other nations are gaining fast -- particularly in Asia and Europe. He further noted that NNI has had a substantial impact on the US nanotechnology industry over the past ten years, which can be seen in the larger number of nanotechnology patents filed, nano-related publications, and nano-related products hitting the commercial market during that period.

Mr. Penhoet further explained that while NNI is being effectively managed, there is still room for some improvement and greater coordination.

For an example, Mr. Penhoet pointed out that there is a lack of basic underlying data from which to analyze the economics of nano-related research, development, and commercialization in the US. Thus, it is difficult to precisely quantify the economic effectiveness of the NNI in measurable terms.

As another example, Mr. Penhoet also mentioned the need to identify and understand potential nano-related risks -- both for purposes of fundamental science, and also to provide a clear regulatory environment and path for commercialization. While undoubtedly a significant portion of PCAST’s written report touches on these issues, the topic was only briefly mentioned in passing during the presentation.

Mr. Penhoet then spent the majority of his presentation explaining the five major recommendations embodied in PCAST’s written report:

• Increase NNI funding for manufacturing research while maintaining support for basic research.
• Strengthen the NNCO, the NNI coordinating entity, with additional funds and a broader mandate.
• Require that metrics be developed to track benefits of nanotechnology such as job creation.
• Develop a cross agency strategy that links EHS research and knowledge gaps and decision making needs.
• Expedite the citizenship review process for those receiving advanced degrees in science and engineering.

The presentation closed with comments by several PCAST members regarding (i) potential methods for developing the underlying economic data needed to properly evaluate nano-related job creation and return on investment; and (ii) potential methods for increasing retention rates of foreign students obtaining advanced nano-related degrees in the US by reducing and/or streamlining citizenship restrictions.

PCAST voted to accept and approve the report after it is amended to reflect the comments discussed during the presentation.

References
[1] Director of the Washington Advisory Group, an LECG Company. Ms. Savitz is the former Deputy Assistant Secretary for Conservation, US Department of Energy. Prior to her DOE service, she was program manager for Research Applied to National Needs at the National Science Foundation. Following her government service, she served in executive positions in the private sector, including: President of Lighting Research Institute, assistant to the vice president for engineering at The Garrett Corporation, and General Manager of Allied Signal Ceramic Components. She recently retired from the position of General Manager for Technology Partnerships at Honeywell.

[2]President of the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation. Mr. Penhoet is the former dean of the School of Public Health at the University of California, Berkeley, prior to which he cofounded and managed the Chiron Corporation. Prior that he was a faculty member of the Biochemistry Department of U.C. Berkeley. Mr. Penhot currently serves as the vice chairman of the Independent Citizen’s Oversight Committee which oversees the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine created by the passage of Proposition 71, the stem cell initiative.

[3] http://www.whitehouse.gov/administration/eop/ostp/pcast.

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When I was growing up, one of the local tv channels in Baltimore, after football season was over, devoted Sunday afternoons to running old movies. One of those films was Fantastic Voyage, a fairly slick 1966 sf film. The plot of the movie revolved around a submarine and its crew being shrunk to the point where they could be injected into a human vein with the mission of finding and dissolving a blood clot lodged in the brain of a scientist defecting from an unnamed Iron Curtain nation.

The plot and acting ranged from the thoroughly absurd to the god awful bad, but the special effects were top of the line for that period of film making (okay, the scene of Donald Pleasance' villain being devoured by a white blood cell that looks more like slowly poured soap bubbles is a hoot and a half, but it worked . . . sort of.) The image that stays in the mind is of the sub just gliding through the blood steam.

Fantastic Voyage leapt up from the depths of my memories while I was reading "How to Build Nanotech Motors" , by Thomas E. Mallouk and Ayusman Sen and published in the May issue of Scientific American briefly reviews nanocar experiments and focuses on two problems with nanocars: (1) how to power them and (2) how to steer them. The article discusses progress made in developing "motors" to power the nanomobile and controlling its direction via the manipulation of magnetic fields.

Mallouk and Sen's vision of the future of the nanocar is more one of nanotrucks, carrying cargoes of drugs to areas of the human body where no ordinary delivery system can reach. For example, anticancer medications could be carried directly to the site of the tumor and delivered without affecting the surrounding healthy cells, much as the crew of the sub reached their blood clot and dissolved it without damaging the other brain cells. This is one area of nanomedicine that I think everyone hopes will reach its full potential.

As for Fantastic Voyage,  the producers and director of Independence Day are working on a remake, scheduled to come out in 2010. If its anything like the remake of Godzilla, do yourself a favour and watch the original.

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Larry Marsh is a columnist for the Kansas City Star. Judging from his recent article, "Stem Cells and Nanosurgery May Change What it Means to be Human", Mr. Marsh has either read or seen some really REALLY bad science fiction.

According to Mr. Marsh

Nanotechnology, which is just beginning to make its debut, may change what it means to be human.

Apparently nanosurgical techniques will accomplish this by speeding up the process of replacing damaged or aged body parts, such as knees or hips. Oh, and somewhere along the line, the human mind will merge with Google. Sorry Yahoo.

Having undergone surgery to replace a shoulder and having gone through the intial period of having to learn to accept that the replacement was part of me, I can understand Mr. Marsh's somewhat strained point, but knee and hip replacement surgeries have been around for sometime now and not too many people have reported not feeling human.

However, its his next idea that makes one step too many:

 What if nanosurgery ultimately allows us to transfer the mind out of the brain into silicon in a stainless steel model?

I don't know about anyone else, but I have two images that leap into my mind after reading that:

1) Spock's Brain, which anyone who has sat through it will painfully admit was probably the single worst ST:OS episode ever written

and

2) "The Colossus of New York". For anyone who hasn't seen it, "Colossus" is a much underrated film from the golden age of SF movies, the 1950's and is still the only film I know of where the film score uses a single piano and the music is based on Schoenberg's 12 tone system.

Marsh ends his article by suggesting that those of us who are growing older might want to consider placing an advance order with Microsoft for that new stainless steel body. Considering all the problems Microsoft had with Vista, you might want to wait until they get all the bugs worked out first.

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