Local Nano - Nano and Giga Challenges Symposium

Next month (March 14 -16 2007) in Phoenix there will be a symposium focused on nanotechnology and associated business opportunities. It's a good venue to find scientists, entrepreneurs, corporate and government people involved in nanotechnology assembled in one place. This conference has a relaxed atmosphere and is conducive to scientific and other discussions at the many arranged social functions. The Conference Chairman (Anatoli Korkin - Nano & Giga Solutions) is big on socialization and even wanted to organize a 24 hour (48 mile) Grand Canyon Rim-to-Rim-to-Rim hike. Steve Goodnick (ASU), Herb Goronkin (Technology Acceleration Associates) and I talked him out of it. Not relaxed; he drinks a lot of coffee.

Nano and Giga Challenges in Electronics and Photonics

From Atoms to Materials to Devices to System Architecture

Symposium and Spring School (Tutorial Lectures)

Phoenix, Arizona, March 12-16, 2007

http://ngc2007.asu.edu

NGC2007 will bring together scientists, including two Noble laureates, engineers, students, entrepreneurs, investors and international business leaders to discuss nanotechnology-based progress in the fields of high-performance integrated circuits, photonics, nanoscale devices and bioelectronics. The Symposium at Arizona State University is expected to draw over 300 people from 30+ countries, creating an international forum to showcase Arizona's progress in nanotechnology.

The conference has over 200 presenters including top academic and industrial research and business leaders. Two Nobel Prize winners; Nicolaas Bloembergen (Harvard Univ/University of Arizona - 1981 for work in laser spectroscopy) and John Polyani (University of Toronto -1986 for research in chemistry) will give invited presentations.

Among other prominent industrial research leaders scheduled to participate are Pahedon Avouris from IBM, Stan Williams from Hewlett Packard, Gianfranco Cerofolini from STM, George Maracas from Motorola, and Evgeni Gusev from Qualcomm, and academic research leaders, Mark Reed from Yale, Peidong Yang from the University of California at Berkeley, Konstantin Likharev from Stony Brook University, Markus Buttiker from the University of Geneva (Switzerland), Thomas Frauenheim from the University of Bremen (Germany), Hong Goo from McGill Univesrity (Canada), Hiroshi Iwai, from the Tokyo Institute of Technology (Japan), Israel Baumvol from the University of Rio Grande (Brazil), John Boland from Trinity College Dublin (Ireland), Dany Porath from the University of Jerusalem (Israel) and Ki-Bum Kim from Seoul National University (South Korea).

Beyond an outstanding technical program, NGC2007 will offer three days of business seminars focused on nanotechnology-related growth opportunities. Experts from the areas of patent law, business development, venture capital and public policy will discuss the role nanotechnology plays in the growth of our economy. Speakers in these sessions include:

Robert Atkins (Quarles & Brady), Sean Murdock (Nano Business Alliance), Clinton Ballinger (Evident Technologies), Vahe Mamikunian (Lux Research), Jim Prendergast (DuPont, Wilmington), David Huff (Optoelectronics Industry Development Association), Alastair Glass (Ministry of Research & Innovation, Toronto), David Huff (Optoelectronics Industry Development Association, Washington D.C.)

The conference will be addressed by Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano, Tempe Mayor Hugh Hallman and Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon.

ASU is sponsoring the Symposium and receives local and international sponsorship from the International Science & Technology Center, National Science Foundation, City of Tempe, the Office of Naval Research, the Office of Army Research, DARPA, Canadian Consulate in Arizona, Springer, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Quarles & Brady LLP, STMicroelectronics, Motorola, JEOL, and Salt River Project.

I hope to see many of you there.

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Valentine's Day

It's that day again when many of us search for gifts for special people that we want to acknowledge, make smile, court, etc. When one thinks of Valentine's Day they are connected to the images of hearts and chocolate (and other things that are amorous in nature). Hearts and chocolate have an additional association in that there has been a considerable amount of research that shows that chocolate is good for the heart.

A few substantiated and unsubstantiated benefits of chocolate are:

cocoa intake is inversely associated with blood pressure

chocolate had blood anticlotting effects similar to aspirin (Hopkins Study below)

chocolate contains the same chemicals found in some recreational drugs (high serotonin levels produce elation or ecstasy)

dark chocolate is better for you than milk chocolate (less sugar and fat)

eating chocolate improves memory, reaction time and cognitive ability (Jerusalem Univ study)

Platelet clumping study

An interesting article recently appeared about a John Hopkins University study on blood clotting and chocolate.

http://www.sciencentral.com/articles/view.php3?article_id=218392893

So the researchers compared blood tests from the chocoholics with those who didn't eat chocolate. They found that chocolate had effects similar to aspirin. "What we saw in this case was that as blood is flowing through a tube, it stays fluid for a longer period of time. Because the platelets are not as able to clump together and block a hole," Faraday says. Faraday was surprised to see that even small amounts of chocolate led to a reduction in the "stickiness" of platelets for at least 24 hours. Although not confirmed, flavonoids found in chocolate are suspected to be responsible for improved blood flow.

Interestingly, a major problem during the course of this study was keeping the control group from becoming contaminated by unauthorized chocolate consumption...

I am sure that by this time you are wondering where this preamble is leading with respect to nanotechnology.

You guessed it:

Nano-chocolate

In a previous post we discussed how nanometer-sized drug particles (highly soluble due to their large surface/volume ratio) increase the efficacy of drug delivery into cells. The Food industry is also exploring such concepts for nutrition. Related to this post, RBC Life Sciences

http://21241.rbclifesciences.com/company.aspx

are selling "Nanoceuticals" which should make better food supplements. They claim that they have developed chocolate NanoClusters which are made by adding pure cocoa to a matrix to form a nanosize powder. "The natural health benefits of cocoa have been combined with RBC's NanoCluster delivery system to give you CocoaClusters a technologically advanced form of cocoa that offers enhanced flavour without the need for excess sugar," the company claimed on its Internet site. I'll try some and report in a future post. Keep on the lookout for advances in nutrition fueled by nanotechnology.

Nano & chocolate

Another connection between Nano and chocolate comes from a highly nonscientific study of my own. I observe the Motorola nanotechnology people here sit down in my office, eat from my chocolate bowl and slowly calm down.

2006 Nanotechnology Highlights

Nanotechnology Highlights for 2006

There were many significant nanotechnology developments in 2006. Choosing the top few is a very difficult task but Josh Wolfe at Forbes took a stab at it and I've used his outline. It's a good journal to subscribe to because they provide good insight into R&D and industry activity and trends.

http://www.forbes.com/2006/12/26/nanotech-breakthroughs-ibm-pf-guru-in_jw_1227soapbox_inl_print.html

Corporate developments

As expected, most of the nanotechnolgy breakthroughs came from academia but a couple were mentioned as coming from the Corporate sector. The two are Motorola's carbon nanotube display which is ready to leave the laboratory and hit the market and IBM's carbon nanotube circuit. By the way, Josh Wolfe was not coerced by Motorola to rank us among the top Corporate nano performers. Our very own Jim Jaskie should be commended for leading the nanoemissive display program.

DNA Origami

Most of the breakthroughs in 2006 came from combining nano and bio (creatively called NanoBio by many).

Paul Rothemund's group at Caltech (March 16, 2006 issue of Nature) control long DNA molecules (~7000 bases) by anchoring them to a surface with short DNA segments called "staples" which selectively bind to complementary sequences at several points on the long strand. The molecules can be manipulated and positioned on the surface by scanning probe techniques. This technique is able to define arbitrary patterns on a surface. Control of molecules at this level could enable future computing.

Caltech

Nanomagnets to Clean Up Drinking Water

Vicki Colvin of Rice University's Center for Biological and Environmental Nanotechnology (CBEN) scored with using iron oxide nanoparticles to remove arsenic from water (Science, 2006, 314, 964). The technology is based on a newly discovered magnetic interaction that takes place between particles of rust. A magnetic field was used to pull the particles to out of solution, leaving only the purified water. Iron is well known for its ability to bind arsenic so Colvin's group repeated the experiments in arsenic-contaminated water and found that the particles reduced the amount of arsenic to levels well below the EPA's threshold for U.S. drinking water. This process could be scaled up to purify vast quantities of water. Arsenic water contamination is a large enough problem that the Grainger Challenge has been established World Bank. A $1 million cash prize will be awarded to whoever comes up with a practical solution to removing arsenic from wells in poor countries. This technology might be a candidate for the prize.

CBEN Rice University

Neurons interfaced to integrated circuits

Charles Lieber's group at Harvard University has found a way to measure the electrical activity of neurons in real time by connecting them electrically to an integrated circuit [Science 313, 1100 (2006)]. The neuron connections are made by silicon nanowires which are located on silicon integrated circuits. Because the circuits are about the size of a neuron, many contact points can be made along the neuron. A critical step in the process is the use of proteins that promote neuronal growth onto the nanowire/circuit. This could be a fundamental technology for interfacing electronics to the brain. Perhaps in the future we'll be able to add a few gigabytes of additional memory into our brains.

Harvard University

Single Nanotube Electrical Circuits

The team of IBM T. J. Watson Research Center (P. Avouris), Univ. Florida and Columbia University has demonstrated a circuit consisting of both p and n channel single walled carbon nanotube transistors. A single, long nanotube was contacted at several positions along its length to define the transistors. The 12 transistor, five stage ring oscillator is a test structure that measures how high in frequency the CNT transistors could operate. The circuit was built using a standard CMOS process and suggests that carbon nanotube electronic devices could be basic components for future computers and memories.

[Science, 2006, 311, 1735]

IBM Nano Lett., 6 (5), 906 -910, 2006.

Nanoparticles for Targeted Drug Delivery

Targeted drug delivery systems have been in development for several years. This study by MIT (Robert Langer) and Harvard (Omid Farokhzad) uses the approach of nanoparticle sized anti-cancer drugs surrounded by aptamers (specially designed and shaped/folded DNA or RNA fragments) which tightly bind to specific surface proteins that are found on prostate tumor cells but not to other tissue. Once bound to the tumor, the docetaxel encapsulated nanoparticles dissolve and release the drug. In this case, the researchers used an aptamer that binds to prostate-specific membrane antigen, a well-characterized protein found on the surface of prostate cancer cells. Experimental results? "A single injection of our nanoparticles completely eradicated the tumors in five of the seven treated animals, and the remaining animals also had significant tumor reduction, compared to the controls," said Farokhzad.

This shows that tumor-specific, targeted drug delivery is indeed feasible with high efficacy. Such delivery systems could reduce drug doses and minimize potential side effects. Watch this area closely.

[Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2006 Apr 18;103(16):6315-20]

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Palm Springs, CA for the week

There are three conferences being held in Palm Springs, CA at the end of this month (January) which focus on technology investing. IBF has put together a good program as usual.

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Telluride Field Testing

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A New Year's Wish

May New Year's Eve find you seated around the table, together with your beloved family and cherished friends. May you find the food better and the pleasure much more fulfilling than anything else you might ordinarily do that night.

May what you see in the mirror delight you, and what others see in you delight them. May someone love you enough to forgive your faults, be blind to your blemishes, and tell the world about your virtues.

May you remember to say "I love you" at least once a day to your spouse, your child, your parent, your siblings.

All the best for 2007!

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