Regulating Nanotechnology and Designing the NGOs of the Future

Now, the Council has announced two fully-funded studies that it believes will blaze that path -- studies our friends at the Center for Responsible Nanotechnology believe are breakthroughs.

The first is to create a sort of artificial ribosome -- a mechanical DNA, if you will -- that can "synthesize linear chains of nanoscale building blocks in programmed sequence." In essence, the ability to forge synthetic chains of materials could soon (the team aims to complete the work in a few years for about $3 million) provide the fundamental spare parts for creating nano-scale machines.

If mechanical DNA can create the parts, though, an "actuator" will still be needed to serve as the conveyer belt through which a computer can assemble those parts into a working and useful whole. The Ideas Factory's second proposal is for the creation of exactly such an actuator.

As always the fear:

We need, as well, to start taking seriously the need for national regulations and international agreements on the use of nanotechnology. If nanotechnology proves less impressive than its proponents insist it will be, no harm will have been done, but if it in fact bears both the importance and the dangers many claim, we will need effective, enforceable treaties and laws to stave off disaster. ...

As Stewart Brand says about biotechnology, "The best way for doubters to control a questionable new technology is to embrace it, lest it remain wholly in the hands of enthusiasts who think there is nothing questionable about it."

That's very astute, and no doubt the paradigm applies to the prior paragraph in terms of government regulation and treaties. We cannot be at a technological disadvantage to those who cheat. I think the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty exemplifies this well. Imagine the NPT if we didn't have nuclear weapons and therefor the safety net of mutually assured destruction. I'm not saying MAD applies to nanotech. Bans and treaties are helpful but won't stop everyone.

More extensive thoughts here:

Our view is that advanced nanotechnology—molecular manufacturing—should be developed as fast as it can be done safely and responsibly. We’re promoting responsible rapid development of the technology—not because we believe it is safe, but because we believe it is risky—and because the only realistic alternative to responsible development is irresponsible development.

Sounds right to me.

Nano Funding

>From the Best of Biotech 06: 

Nanotechnology financing

I wrote about this earlier, as at least four Midwest nanotech companies raised over $110 million in venture capital financing in 2006, including: Nanosphere, $57 million; NanoBio, $30 million; NanoInk, $20 million; and Nanotope, $3.5 million. Interestingly, three of the four companies were spun out of Northwestern University's Institute of Nanotechnology.

This is truly amazing and yet these deals are not the only "nano" financings, as other companies such as Polyera, Advanced Diamond Technologies , Nanodisc, and Ohmx also raised money through government funding as well as investor financings. There seems to be a wave of new nano companies spinning out of Argonne, University of Illinois-Urbana/Champaign, and the University of Michigan.

nano + singularity = ....

Nanularity!

"All things change at the scale of the very small, but while their differences become different, their ability to become one becomes possible. To describe that possibility, no, destiny, I have coined the phrase Nanularity."

We're jammin... I wanna jam it with you...

Bacteria Harnessed As Micro-Robot Motors

Sweet. 

Scientists at Carnegie Mellon University fixed the bacteria to the micro-capsules and then used chemicals to turn on and off their motion-producing flagella

Nanowhat? Nanowho?

Medicalnewstoday.com reports "Nano World Off The Radar For Most."

"In the last 15 years we have continuously been exposed to a variety of emerging technologies - biotechnology, information science and technology, cognitive science and now nanotechnology," says Dr. Akhlesh Lakhtakia, the Charles Godfrey Binder Professor of Engineering Science and Mechanics at Penn State. "Education is the key to understanding these areas."

However, when it comes to nanotechnology, Lakhtakia and his colleagues found that people in most segments of the economy are not paying much attention. Or, if they are aware of the field, the reactions and actions are overly enthusiastic, uninformed or alarmist.

Perhaps ignorance of technology or alarmism explains this, as well as this and maybe this.

Lessons for nanotech/biotech biz models?

Q&A:

I argue in the book that "monetization of intellectual property" has been a powerful shaping force in biotech. The idea behind monetization of IP is that you don't need to actually develop a product; you can just develop a piece of IP, and then capture financial returns through licensing or other market arrangement. This has worked wonderfully in semiconductors and software, but monetization of IP only works there because of some very specific conditions. You need to have a very modular knowledge base; that is, you need to be able to break up a "big puzzle" into its relatively independent pieces so that a particular piece can be valued independently; and you have to have well defined intellectual property rights. It is hard to sell stuff where the rights are not well defined. There are all sorts of hazards.

These conditions are pretty well met in industries like semiconductors and software; but they do not characterize at all the state of the science in biotech. So, as a result, we have been pursuing an anatomy that focuses on breaking up the pieces of the puzzle into independent pieces (having lots of small specialized firms) when what matters is the way we integrate the pieces.

NanoBioNexus

Good Q&A with Adriana Vela of NanoBioNexus.  "Nanomedicine is highly specific medical intervention at the molecular scale for curing disease or repairing damaged tissue." 

Nanotechnology Based Medicines Nearing Commercialization

NANOMEDICINE Conference in March:

Innovations at the intersection of medicine, biotechnology, engineering, physical sciences and information technology are spurring new directions in R&D, commercialization and technology transfer. Basic research in nanomedicine and bionanotechnology is rapidly producing commercially viable products. Governments and industries across the globe are staking their claims by investing billions for research. Clearly, international rivalries are growing and political alliances and battle lines are beginning to gel.

Biotechnology and Nanotechnology Will Provide More Effective Treatments:

The article says that drug delivery systems that carry encapsulated drugs directly to the site of treatment may be effective with smaller doses while avoiding side effects and toxicity that can occur through the accumulation of the drug in health tissues.

Agreed. 

 

Nanotechnology Monitoring Single Cells

No doubt a boon for personalized medicine. This blog also makes some noteworthy points:

This ability to measure the expression of a single gene in a single cell is part of a larger (or smaller) trend: The development of tools that can measure and manipulate biological systems at the scale of their smallest individual components. ...

... Computers got cheaper because they kept getting smaller. Microfluidic devices and microsensors on chips are going to do the same thing to biological science and medicine.

We'll see... Enter the next X-Prize Winner, and the future has arrived!