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National Conference on Nanotechnology and Regulatory Issues
Organisation: Co-organized by TERI and the Department of Law, Calcutta
Closing Date: 31 October 2008
EN
Nanotechnology is developing at a rapid pace in India. The government has set up a dedicated Nano Mission to channel R&D funding into public research and develop human resources and institutional capabilities in a structured manner. Several private sector players especially in the health and pharmaceuticals and the textiles sectors have made considerable investment in developing novel product lines by integrating naomaterials and in enabling the miniatiarising of current devices. properties like porousity, moisture retention and malleability of nanostructures have been manipulated to create a range of products with value added characteristics.
Already there are several products in the market which use nanomaterials like the Samsung washing machines using silver nano particles and use of nano-tex the stain resistant for making stain resistant fabrics by the Arvind Mills in India. There is also the possibility of several products in the market that use nanmaterials or nanoparticles without quouting them within their product ingriedient section.
The purpose of the conference is to bring together policymakers, nanoscientists, lawyers and academicians to debate and discuss a range of regulatory issues relating to nanotechnology regulation in India. Please find attached the conference announcement (including the call for papers).
The goal of the conference is as follows:
* Benchmark the international regulatory developments in this field and analyze their implications for India. * Analyse the current regulatory structure and provide a gap analysis * Draw lessons from the risk (EHS) regulation paradigms in operation vis-a-vis emerging technologies like biotechnology and discuss their application with reference to nanotechnology * Address cross cutting isues like the patents regime, role of courts and other governance agencies and ethical issues underlying the regulatory options
In this context the National Conference on Nanotechnology and Regulatory Issues is being co-organized by TERI and the Department of Law, Calcutta University between the 9-10 January 2009 at the Centre for NanoScience and Nanotechnology, Saltlake City, Kolkata. Contact Details
For any further information, please contact the Organizing Committee at nidhis@teri.res.in

Buckypaper is 10 times lighter but potentially 500 times stronger than steel when sheets of it are stacked and pressed together to form a composite. Unlike conventional composite materials, though, it conducts electricity like copper or silicon and disperses heat like steel or brass.
"All those things are what a lot of people in nanotechnology have been working toward as sort of Holy Grails," said Wade Adams, a scientist at Rice University.
Making a competitive product
That idea - that there is great future promise for buckypaper and other derivatives of the ultra-tiny cylinders known as carbon nanotubes - has been floated for years. However, researchers at Florida State University say they have made important progress that soon may turn hype into reality.
Buckypaper is made from tube-shaped carbon molecules 50,000 times thinner than a human hair. Because of its unique properties, it is envisioned as a wondrous new material for light, energy-efficient aircraft and automobiles, more powerful computers, improved TV screens and many other products.
So far, buckypaper can be made at only a fraction of its potential strength, in small quantities and at a high price. The Florida State researchers are developing manufacturing techniques that soon may make it competitive with the best composite materials available.
"If this thing goes into production, this very well could be a very, very game-changing or revolutionary technology to the aerospace business," said Les Kramer, chief technologist for Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control, which is helping fund the Florida State research.
The scientific discovery that led to buckypaper virtually came from outer space.
A great exception
In 1985, British scientist Harry Kroto joined researchers at Rice University for an experiment to create the same conditions that exist in a star. They wanted to find out how stars, the source of all carbon in the universe, make the element that is a main building block of life.
Everything went as planned - with one exception.
"There was an extra character that turned up totally unexpected," said Kroto, now at Florida State heading a program that encourages the study of math, science and technology in public schools. "It was a discovery out of left field."
The surprise guest was a molecule with 60 carbon atoms shaped like a soccer ball. To Kroto, it also looked like the geodesic domes promoted by Buckminster Fuller, an architect, inventor and futurist. That inspired Kroto to name the new molecule buckminsterfullerene, or "buckyballs" for short.
For their discovery of the buckyball - the third form of pure carbon to be discovered after graphite and diamonds - Kroto and his Rice colleagues, Robert Curl Jr. and Richard E. Smalley, were awarded the Nobel Prize for chemistry in 1996.
Adding on to the discovery
Separately, Japanese physicist Sumio Iijima developed a tube-shaped variation while doing research at Arizona State University.
Researchers at Smalley's laboratory then inadvertently found the tubes would stick together when disbursed in a liquid suspension and filtered through a fine mesh, producing a thin film - buckypaper.
The secret of its strength is the huge surface area of each nanotube, said Ben Wang, director of Florida State's High-Performance Materials Institute.
"If you take a gram of nanotubes, just one gram, and if you unfold every tube into a graphite sheet, you can cover about two-thirds of a football field," Wang said.
Carbon nanotubes already are beginning to be used to strengthen tennis rackets and bicycles, but in small amounts.
The epoxy resins used in those applications are 1 percent to 5 percent carbon nanotubes, which are added in the form of a fine powder. Buckypaper, which is a thin film rather than a powder, has a much higher nanotube content - about 50 percent.
Overcoming challenges
One challenge is that the tubes clump together at odd angles, limiting their strength in buckypaper. Wang and his fellow researchers found a solution: Exposing the tubes to high magnetism causes most of them to line up in the same direction, increasing their collective strength.
Another problem is the tubes are so perfectly smooth it's hard to hold them together with epoxy. Researchers are looking for ways to create some surface defects - but not too many - to improve bonding.
So far, the Florida State institute has been able to produce buckypaper with half the strength of the best existing composite material, known as IM7. Wang expects to close the gap quickly.
"By the end of next year we should have a buckypaper composite as strong as IM7, and it's 35 percent lighter," Wang said.
Buckypaper now is being made only in the laboratory, but Florida State is in the early stages of spinning out a company to make commercial buckypaper.
"These guys have actually demonstrated materials that are capable of being used on flying systems," said Adams, director of Rice's Richard E. Smalley Institute for Nanoscale Science and Technology. "Having something that you can hold in your hand is an accomplishment in nanotechnology."
It takes upward of five years to get a new structural material certified for aviation use, so Wang said he expects buckypaper's first uses will be for electromagnetic interference shielding and lightning-strike protection on aircraft.

Research leaders Dr Rachel McKendry and Professor Gabriel Aeppli have revealed that they have developed ultra-sensitive probes that can help increase the understanding of how antibiotics work.
They say that the new technology can pave the way for the development of more effective new drugs.
Making use of cantilever arrays, tiny levers no wider than a human hair, the researchers analysed the process, which ordinarily takes place in the body when vancomycin binds itself to the surface of the bacteria.
After coating the cantilever array with mucopeptides from bacterial cell walls, the researchers found that on attaching, the antibiotic triggers a surface stress on the bacteria.
The resultant surface stress can easily be detected by a tiny bending of the levers.
According to the researchers, the stress is what contributes to the disruption of the cell walls and the breakdown of the bacteria.
The team further compared how the interaction of vancomycin with both non-resistant and resistant strains of bacteria.
The ’superbugs’ are resistant to antibiotics because of a simple mutation, which deletes a single hydrogen bond from the structure of their cell walls.
With this small change, it becomes approximately 1,000 times harder for the antibiotic to attach itself to the bug, leaving it much less able to disrupt the cells’ structure, and thus rendering it therapeutically ineffective.
“There has been an alarming growth in antibiotic-resistant hospital ’superbugs’ such as MRSA and vancomycin-resistant Enterococci (VRE). This is a major global health problem and is driving the development of new technologies to investigate antibiotics and how they work,” Nature magazine quoted McKendry as saying.
She added: “The cell wall of these bugs is weakened by the antibiotic, ultimately killing the bacteria. Our research on cantilever sensors suggests that the cell wall is disrupted by a combination of local antibiotic-mucopeptide binding and the spatial mechanical connectivity of these events. Investigating both these binding and mechanical influences on the cells’ structure could lead to the development of more powerful and effective antibiotics in future.”
“This work at the LCN demonstrates the effectiveness of silicon-based cantilevers for drug screening applications,” added Professor Gabriel Aeppli, Director of the LCN.
The study is published in the latest edition of Nature Nanotechnology journal. (ANI)

The scientists have found that drug-laced nanoparticles plus a statin could stop the growth of tiny blood vessels that feed arterial plaques. Their results suggest that the dual treatment also prevents the vessels from restarting their growth, which could shrink or stabilize plaques. Although the data were obtained in tests on rabbits, they raise hope that a similar approach could help human patients with atherosclerosis.
The nanoparticles — minute spheres about 20,000 times smaller than the diameter of a straight pin — were coated with a substance that made them stick in growing blood vessels and with fumagillin, a potent compound that stops blood vessel growth.
"We saw that statins sustain the acute inhibition of blood vessel growth produced by the fumagillin nanoparticles within the plaque," says senior author Gregory Lanza, M.D., Ph.D., a Washington University cardiologist at Barnes Jewish Hospital.
Lanza and co-senior author Samuel A. Wickline, M.D., published these results in the September issue of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology: Cardiovascular Imaging. Patrick M. Winter, Ph.D., research assistant professor of medicine, was the lead author of the study. Lanza is professor of medicine and biomedical engineering. Wickline is professor of medicine, physics, biomedical engineering and cell biology and physiology.
Patients with atherosclerosis often take statins to lower cholesterol. Statins also decrease atherosclerotic plaque progression by modestly inhibiting proliferation of new vessels (neovessels) within plaques. These neovessels provide increased blood and oxygen to cells in actively developing plaques. Because of their high fragility, neovessels often rupture, leading to local hemorrhages that greatly accelerate the disease process. Fumagillin nanoparticles could be used to further inhibit the development of new vessel treatment in high-risk patients, Lanza says.
"Our past research showed that fumagillin nanoparticles reduced blood vessel formation at the site of arterial plaques in experimental rabbits after one week," says Lanza. "In this study, we tested how long that effect lasts and if it could be extended by statins."
The rabbits used in the study ate a high-fat diet that caused arterial plaques. The researchers detected new blood vessel buildup at the site of plaques by coating nanoparticles that were targeted to neovessels with an MRI contrast agent.
When the rabbits received a single dose of blood-vessel-targeted nanoparticles that also carried fumagillin, the researchers saw that the amount of MRI signal at the sites of plaques decreased about five-fold by the end of one week. But a high MRI signal returned by the fourth week, indicating that plaques were active again.
Because repeated injections of fumagillin nanoparticles is impractical for treating human patients, the researchers looked for a way to extend the initial effectiveness.
Atherosclerotic rabbits that got daily doses of the statin atorvastatin (brand name Lipotor) had no change in plaque angiogenesis measured by MRI. When the statin and the fumagillin nanoparticles were started at the same time, the atorvastatin had no additional benefits over the targeted therapy.
However, when the statin had been given for at least one month prior to the fumagillin treatment, the five-fold reduction in MRI signal due to diminished neovessels was maintained for four weeks.
Lanza says that the results suggest that one or possibly two injections of nanoparticles in patients who are already on statins could lead to a long-term reduction in plaque activity and prolonged plaque stability. The results also illustrate the potential clinical use of MRI molecular imaging with the neovessel-targeted nanoparticles to measure plaque status in high-risk patients before clinical symptoms appear.
The nanoparticle technology permits potent therapeutics to be effective at minute doses by targeting them directly to the disease site. Moreover, the MRI molecular imaging with the nanoparticles could be used to noninvasively monitor and manage the response to treatment and the progression of atherosclerotic disease.
"Because nearly half of patients experiencing their first heart attack die soon after, our goal is to prevent or greatly delay clinically significant atherosclerotic disease," Lanza says. "We hope to achieve this by a personalized nanomedicine approach that risk-stratifies patients and affords safe, targeted delivery of potent compounds that block progression in high-risk patients. This would be followed by management of the disease with standard-of-care drugs and periodic MRI monitoring of disease progression. We plan to conduct clinical trials to test this idea."
Winter PM, Caruthers SD, Williams TA, Wickline SA, Lanza GM. Antiangiogenic synergism of integrin-targeted fumagillin nanoparticles and atorvastatin in atherosclerosis. Journal of the American College of Cardiology: Cardiovascular Imaging, Sept. 15, 2008.
Funding from the National Cancer Institute, the National Hearth Lung and Blood Institute, the National Institute for Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering, Philips Medical Systems and Philips Research supported this research.
Washington University School of Medicine's 2,100 employed and volunteer faculty physicians also are the medical staff of Barnes-Jewish and St. Louis Children's hospitals. The School of Medicine is one of the leading medical research, teaching and patient care institutions in the nation, currently ranked third in the nation by U.S. News & World Report. Through its affiliations with Barnes-Jewish and St. Louis Children's hospitals, the School of Medicine is linked to BJC HealthCare.
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_TZ4zYEBSw1I/SPtpiD9VWeI/AAAAAAAAIUc/9dxWcZHU7-... Image from What is Atherosclerosis, courtesy of National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute. Atherosclerosis in an artery (B)

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has selected 20 project proposals for funding following its Nanomanufacturing for Energy Efficiency 2008 Research Call. The projects promise to make revolutionary improvements in a broad range of energy production, storage, and consumption applications that will reduce energy and carbon intensity in industrial processes.
Nanotechnology, the understanding and control of matter at the atomic or molecular level, has the potential for major improvements in energy applications. Over the past 7 years, the U.S. Government has invested $8.3 billion in nanotechnology and made great strides in gaining fundamental knowledge at the nanometer scale.
An important next step in realizing the promise of nanotechnology is to improve production and manufacturing techniques for nanomaterials and nano-enabled products, many of which are “stuck at the lab scale.” The selected projects will advance the state of nanomanufacturing by improving the reliability of nanomaterials production and scaling-up manufacturing processes that use nanomaterials.
DOE national laboratories participated in the research call intending that innovative technologies developed will be further developed and deployed commercially by industry. The research call was geared toward “quick-win” nanomanufacturing projects with a realistic path to commercialization in 3–5 years.
The 20 research projects, focused in the two technical areas of concept definition studies and nanomanufacturing process development, total over $17 million in DOE funding. An additional 13 projects were selected as alternates to be developed if funding allows. The National Energy Technology Laboratory manages the Nanomanufacturing Program and will oversee the selected projects for the DOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy’s Industrial Technology Program.
AREA OF INTEREST: Concept Definition Studies Projects selected under this area of interest will produce concept definition studies for specific, promising nanotechnologies in the areas of catalysts, coating and thin films, separations media, nanocomposites, and other nanodevelopments. The studies will include technical and economic feasibility analyses as well as a complete lifecycle analysis for a proposed nanotechnology, from synthesis to disposal.
* Development of an Advanced Technology to Manufacture Surfaces with Nano- and Micro-Scale Features (Idaho National Laboratory)—A unique, high-volume manufacturing technology to fabricate nano- and micro-pattered molds and dies will be developed to allow many metals, polymers, and other surfaces to be nanostructured, dramatically increasing their ability to repel water. (DOE share: $1,440,000; recipient share: $360,000; duration: 36 months)
* High-Power Impulse Magnetron Sputtering of Ultra-Hard and Low-Friction Nanocomposite Coatings for Improved Energy Efficiency and Durability in Demanding Industrial Applications (Argonne National Laboratory)—Researchers will test the effectiveness of a revolutionary technology in industrial-scale deposition systems high-power impulse magnetron sputtering. The intention is to achieve the highest possible levels of adhesion between superhard nanocomposite coatings and their substrates, as well as strong cohesion within the films, to prevent delaminating or cracking when used under the harsh and cycling operating conditions of advanced manufacturing and other industrial operations. (DOE share: $200,000; recipient share: $0; duration: 12 months)
* Highly Dispersed Metal Catalyst for Fuel Cell Electrodes (Savannah River National Laboratory)—Researchers at Savannah River National Laboratory will evaluate the use of highly dispersed platinum on electrical conductive porous supports as a fuel cell electrode catalyst. (DOE share: $250,000; recipient share: $0; duration: 12 months)
* Hydrogen and Wear Resistant Nanolaminate Coatings (Pacific Northwest National Laboratory)—Superhard coatings based on sputtered nanolayer coatings with hydrogen compatibility and low friction coefficients will be created to allow hydrogen fuels to be used in a range of applications. (DOE share: $197,464; recipient share: $0; duration: 12 months)
* Large-Scale Nanofermentation of Quantum Dots (Oak Ridge National Laboratory)—Nanofermentation, using bacteria to facilitate the controlled growth of nanomaterials, can be manipulated by adding chemical control agents to control particle sizes. This technology will be used to synthesize a variety of candidate materials for quantum dots. (DOE share: $250,000; recipient share: $0; duration: 12 months)
* Microwave and Beam Activities of Nanostructured Catalysts for Crude (Oak Ridge National Laboratory)—Oak Ridge researchers will delineate process conditions for microwave activation of nanostructured catalysts, improving catalyst performance on models for heavy crude oil. (DOE share: $300,000; recipient share: $0; duration: 12 months)
* Nanoscale Electrodeposition Process for Manufacturing High Selectivity Catalysts (Argonne National Laboratory)—Researchers will develop a new nanoscale fabrication concept for forming high-selectivity catalysts for the chemical industry which provide a high degree of control of chemical reactions at the molecular level. (DOE share: $300,000; recipient share: $0; duration: 12 months) * Nanoscale Interpenetrating Phase Composites for Industrial and Vehicle Applications (Oak Ridge National Laboratory)—Nanoscale interpenetrating phase composite components that are of usable size will be produced for applications including high-wear/corrosion-resistant refractory shapes for industrial applications, lightweight vehicle braking-system components, and lower-cost/higher-performance body and vehicle armor. (DOE share: $200,000; recipient share: $0; duration: 12 months)
* Transformational Fabrication of Nanostructured Materials Using Plasma Arc Lamps (Oak Ridge National Laboratory)—High-density plasma lamp technology will be used to realize the enhanced properties of nanostructured materials over large areas, specifically focusing on a zinc oxide system for light-emitting diode applications. (DOE share: $180,000; recipient share: $0; duration: 12 months)
AREA OF INTEREST: Nanomanufacturing Process Development Projects in this area of interest will focus on enabling processes for nanomaterials production or nanomaterial use in industrial processes. DOE national laboratories will partner with industrial companies to (1) design production systems that will generate uniform material in production-scale quantities, or (2) identify and modify promising processing techniques to handle nanomaterials at one tenth of the smallest scale in use in industry today.
* Accelerated Deployment of Nanostructured Hydrotreading Catalysts (Argonne National Laboratory)—New nanomanufacturing techniques that exhibit superior performance in bench-scale testing will be used to rapidly develop, evaluate, and deploy catalysts for industrial utilization. As a pilot test of this capability, hydrofinishing catalysts for the re-refining of used oil will be manufactured. (DOE share: $800,000; recipient share: $250,000; duration: 24 months)
* Application of Wear-Resistant, Nanocomposite Coatings Produced from Iron-Based Glassy Powders (Oak Ridge National Laboratory)—Nanosized complex metal boron carbides will be incorporated into a metal matrix coating and tested on full-size components with the intention of extending the life and maintenance cycle of any iron-based substrate that can benefit from improved wear resistance. (DOE share: $960,000; recipient share: $240,000; duration: 36 months)
* Development, Characterization, Production and Demonstration of Nanofluids for Industrial Cooling Applications (Argonne National Laboratory)—Water-based nanofluids will be developed and tailored for industrial cooling. The nanofluid with the highest thermal conductivity and heat transfer coefficient, exhibiting no deleterious erosion, will be down-selected for measurement of thermal resistance in an instrumented heat exchanger. (DOE share: $1,000,000; recipient share: $250,000; duration: 36 months) * Erosion-Resistant Nanocoatings for Improved Energy Efficiency in Gas Turbines (National Energy Technology Laboratory)—Erosion-resistant nanocoatings will be evaluated for potential application on compressor airfoils for commercial aviation and industrial gas-turbine engine applications to enable inlet fogging in land-based turbines, leading to efficiency increases in current and next-generation technology. Reduced erosion in aviation turbines will improve engine fuel efficiencies for the commercial airline industry, leading to less fuel consumed and reduced environmental impact. (DOE share: $267,715; recipient share: $274,860; duration: 12 months)
* Large-Scale Manufacturing of Nanoparticulate-Based Lubrication Additives for Improved Energy Efficiency and Reduced Emissions (Argonne National Laboratory)—Argonne researchers will develop and scale-up nanoparticulate-based lubrication additives that can drastically lower friction and wear in a wide range of industrial and transportation applications. The additives’ performance in oils and greases will be verified in order to achieve higher energy efficiency, better environmental compatibility, and longer durability in current and future manufacturing and transportation systems. (DOE share: $2,000,000; recipient share: $500,000; duration: 36 months)
* Microchannel-Assisted Nanomaterial Deposition Technology for Photovoltaic Material Production (Pacific Northwest National Laboratory)—Supercritical fluids and microchannel-based reactors, mixers, separators, and other process components will be used in the efficient, tailored production and deposition of functional nanomaterials with multiple uses. (DOE share: $1,971,800; recipient share: $527,380; duration: 36 months)
* Nanocatalysts for Diesel Engine Emission Remediation (Oak Ridge National Laboratory)—Durable zeolite nanocatalysts with a broader temperature operating window will be developed to treat diesel engine emissions, thus enabling diesel engine equipment and vehicles to meet regulatory requirements. The catalyst performance that meets all regulatory requirements in laboratory testing will be used for dynamometer testing. (DOE share: $1,200,000; recipient share: $300,000; duration: 36 months)
* Nanoparticle Technology for Biorefinery of Non-Food Source Feedstocks (Ames Laboratory)—Efficient and economical extraction methods for harvesting suitable chemical compounds, such as triglycerides, neutral lipids, and fatty acids, from microalgae for biodiesel production and single-step conversion to biodiesel will be performed via the use of nanoparticles. (DOE share: $885,000; recipient share: $232,224; duration: 36 months)
* Nanostructured Superhydrophobic Coatings for Breakthrough Energy Savings (Oak Ridge National Laboratory)—Nanostructured superhydrophobic technology will be developed, optimized, and implemented for increased energy savings. (DOE share: $1,995,000; recipient share: $600,000; duration: 36 months)
* Self-Assembled, Nanostructured Carbon for Energy Storage and Water Treatment (Oak Ridge National Laboratory)—A reliable manufacturing process will be developed to produce nanostructured carbon materials for use in industrially viable, large-scale applications such as electrochemical double-layer capacitors for energy storage and capacitive deionization for water treatment. The work will be centered on overcoming issues that hinder the translation of the nanomaterial production process from lab scale to commercial production. (DOE share: $1,689,894; recipient share: $480,000; duration: 36 months)
* Ultratough Thermally Stable Polycrystalline (TSP) Diamond/Silicon Carbide Nanocomposites for Drill Bits (Los Alamos National Laboratory)—The thermomechanical performance of bulk diamond compacts will be enhanced by applying an advanced nanosynthesis process to manufacture superhard and ultratough diamond/silicon carbide nanocomposites with nanofiber reinforcement. The development of advanced nanocomposites with exceptional ability to resist thermal degradation and impact fracture will have significant technological implications. (DOE share: $1,200,000; recipient share: $300,000; duration: 36 months)

The University of Texas at Brownsville and Texas Southmost College has taken the lead in a multi-year, federally funded research project studying microscopic materials for potential use in the aerospace industry.
According to university officials, researchers have received $2.4 million in federal appropriations to continue research as part of the Consortium for Nanomaterials for Aerospace Commerce and Technology, a group of seven Texas universities including UTB-TSC and the University of Texas-Pan American. These universities, along with the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory, are studying the use of materials 100 nanometers in size and smaller in applications like surface coatings on planes, solar cells and biological-agent detectors.
A nanometer is equal to one billionth of a meter.
"We're doing just a small part of the research," said Mario Diaz, professor of physics and director of the Center for Gravitational Wave Astronomy at UTB-TSC. But because the university is the lead institution in the consortium this year, hopefully its role in the consortium will expand, Diaz said.
At UTB-TSC, researchers are looking at creating "biosensors" that can detect pathogens in the human body, Diaz said.
Andreas Hanke, assistant professor of physics at UTB-TSC, is working on using tiny particles to attract the DNA molecules of a harmful agent - such as bacteria molecules - and binding them to make them harmless.
"Our main accomplishment so far is we've produced particles that are much smaller than others have, at 4 nanometers in size," Hanke said.
The university's research could "very likely" lead to a patent down the road, Diaz said.
Professors at UTPA are looking at "electrorheological" fluids - liquids that become solid when electrified, said Karen Lozano, assistant professor of engineering. Such fluids could be used in brakes, pistons, inks, switches and even Braille keyboards, Lozano said.
"Right now, it's very difficult to use (these fluids) ... it's a very nice effect, but has only worked at very high voltages," Lozano said. "We're working on achieving high strength with a low voltage."
The consortium was founded in 2006 with a $1.4 million U.S. Department of Defense grant. In previous years, Rice University was the lead institution, Diaz said.
Other consortium participants include the University of Houston and University of Texas campuses in Austin, Arlington and Dallas.

An International Seminar on Biomedical Engineering and Nanotechnology will be held at the D Y Patil Deemed University from October 21-23 here.
This is the first international conference on engineering and medical research field to be held in India. Around 500 renowned scientists from across around the world will participate in the conference, Vice Chancellor S H Pawar said during a press conference yesterday.
Scientists from Malasia, China, Italy will be presenting their research papers during the conference, Pawar said.
Nanotechnology is a new and challenging technology in the medical field especially in the treatment of Cancer and heart diseases, he said.
Topics like research in production of environment friendly plastic, artificial heart for developed countries, protein based bio-sensors, new technology in the study of micro-cells, new machines for heart surgery are likely to be discussed during the conference, he said.

Water-borne illnesses have been estimated to be responsible for 35% of deaths in developing nations. Providing clean drinking water, remediating polluted waterways and aquifers and preventing pollution are critical challenges around the globe for governments and the scientific community. A forthcoming reference from William Andrew highlights the opportunities for nanotechnology to positively influence this area and the challenges that lie therein.
Nanotechnology Applications for Clean Water provides detailed information on breakthroughs, cutting edge technologies, current research, and future trends that may lead to widespread applications. The first four sections of the book cover specific topics, including the use of nanotechnology for clean drinking water in both large scale and point-of-use systems. The final section discusses the inherent societal implications that may affect the acceptance of widespread applications.
The fact is nanotechnology is already having a dramatic impact on research in water quality. Recent advances show that many of the current problems involving water quality can be addressed using nanosorbent, nanocatalysts, bioactive nanoparticles, nanostructured catalytic membranes, and nanoparticle enhanced filtration. In this truly unique reference, over 80 leading experts from the global scientific community share their research and knowledge to address the global challenges of water quality and remediation in the hopes that nanotechnology can ensure that clean water is available to everyone.
Engineers, researchers, and students of water quality, water and wastewater management, groundwater remediation, and pollution prevention will find this book an excellent reference and status of the state-of-the-art. Policy and government officials will find the information they need to begin considering nanotechnology as a potential resolution to their water quality concerns.
Nanotechnology Applications for Clean Water is the fourth book in the William Andrew Micro & Nano Technologies series and is due to be published in November 2008. Discounted copies are currently available through the publisher.
William Andrew is an independent, mid-size publisher of applied science handbooks, references, and databases with an active backlist of more than 400 titles in 16 subject areas. William Andrew publishes and distributes its content in North America and has appointed Elsevier as its exclusive distribution partner for all territories outside North America.

The field, which applies mathematical principles similar to those in Einstein's theory of general relativity, will be described in an article to be published Friday (Oct. 17) in the journal Science. The article will appear in the magazine's Perspectives section and was written by Vladimir Shalaev, Purdue's Robert and Anne Burnett Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering.
The list of possible breakthroughs includes a cloak of invisibility; computers and consumer electronics that use light instead of electronic signals to process information; a "planar hyperlens" that could make optical microscopes 10 times more powerful and able to see objects as small as DNA; advanced sensors; and more efficient solar collectors.
"Transformation optics is a new way of manipulating and controlling light at all distances, from the macro- to the nanoscale, and it represents a new paradigm for the science of light," Shalaev said. "Although there were early works that helped to develop the basis for transformation optics, the field was only recently established thanks in part to papers by Sir John Pendry at the Imperial College, London, and Ulf Leonhardt at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland and their co-workers."
Current optical technologies are limited because, for the efficient control of light, components cannot be smaller than the size of the wavelengths of light. Transformation optics sidesteps this limitation using a new class of materials, or metamaterials, which are able to guide and control light on all scales, including the scale of nanometers, or billionths of a meter.
"The whole idea behind metamaterials is to create materials designed and engineered out of artificial atoms, meta-atoms, which are smaller than the wavelengths of light itself," Shalaev said. "One of the most exciting applications is an electromagnetic cloak that could bend light around itself, similar to the flow of water around a stone, making invisible both the cloak and an object hidden inside."
Shalaev and researchers from his group - doctoral students Wenshan Cai and Uday K. Chettiar and principal research scientist Alexander V. Kildishev - in 2007 took a step toward creating an optical cloaking device in the visible range of the spectrum. Their theoretical design uses an array of tiny needles radiating outward from a central spoke, resembling a round hairbrush, and would bend light around the object being cloaked.
The mathematical equations for transformation optics are similar to the mathematics behind Einstein's theory of general relativity, which describes how gravity warps space and time, Shalaev said.
"Whereas relativity demonstrates the curved nature of space and time, we are able to curve space for light, and we can design and engineer tiny devices to do this," he said. "In addition to curving light around an object to render it invisible, you could do just the opposite - concentrate light in an area, which might be used for collecting sunlight in solar energy applications. So, general relativity may find practical use in a number of novel optical devices based on transformation optics."
The metamaterials also may enable engineers to overcome obstacles now confronting the semiconductor industry: It is becoming increasingly difficult to make faster computer chips because the technology is reaching its limits. But computers using light instead of electronic signals to process information would be thousands of times faster than conventional computers. Such "photonic" computers would contain special transistor-size optical elements made from metamaterials.
Transformation optics also could enable engineers to design and build a "planar magnifying hyperlens" that would drastically improve the power and resolution of light microscopes.
"The hyperlens is probably the most exciting and promising metamaterial application to date," Shalaev said. "The first hyperlens, proposed independently by Evgenii Narimanov at Princeton and Nader Engheta at the University of Pennsylvania and their co-workers, was cylindrical in shape. Transformation optics, however, enables a hyperlens in a planar form, which is important because you could just simply add this flat hyperlens to conventional microscopes and see things 10 times smaller than now possible. You could focus down to the nanoscale, much smaller than the wavelength of light, to actually see molecules like DNA, viruses and other objects that are now simply too small to see."
The hyperlens theoretically would compensate for the loss of a portion of the light transmitting fine details of an image as it passes through a lens. Lenses and imaging systems could be improved if this lost light, which scientists call "evanescent light," could be restored. Such a hyperlens would both magnify an image and convert this evanescent light so that it does not weaken with distance but continues to propagate.
Meta in Greek means beyond, so the term metamaterial means to create something that doesn't exist in nature.
Unlike natural materials, metamaterials are able to reduce the "index of refraction" to less than one or less than zero. Refraction occurs as electromagnetic waves, including light, bend when passing from one material into another. It causes the bent-stick-in-water effect, which occurs when a stick placed in a glass of water appears bent when viewed from the outside. Each material has its own refraction index, which describes how much light will bend in that particular material and defines how much the speed of light slows down while passing through a material.
Natural materials typically have refractive indices greater than one. Metamaterials, however, can make the index of refraction vary from zero to one, which possibly will enable cloaking as well as other advances, Shalaev said.
He estimated that researchers may be building prototypes using transformation optics, such as the first planar hyperlenses, within five years.
http://www.azom.com/images/News/NewsImage_14162.jpg These are graphical representations of numerical simulations depicting four potential applications of a new field called transformation optics.

Tiny robots that fight cancer? Shock-resistant and energy-absorbing body armor? Invisible disinfectants? Is this all science fiction or impending reality? The hype surrounding nanotechnology has waned since the early ‘80s when American engineer Dr. K. Eric Drexler brought the concept to the forefront, but what began as a simple topic of conversation at physicists’ cocktail parties is now being realized in a sweeping movement that is going largely unnoticed.
Nanotechnology refers to the science and engineering of matter at the atomic and molecular scale, normally in the range of 1 to 100 nanometers. Any materials or devices with critical dimensions that fall into this range are generally classified as nano. To put things into perspective, one nanometer is the amount a man's beard grows in the time it takes him to lift a razor to his face. Now that’s small.
What’s interesting about materials on the nano scale -- contrary to popular belief -- is that size really does matter. That’s because when familiar materials are reduced to nano proportions, they begin to develop odd properties. For example, plastics can conduct electricity, gold particles can appear red or green and solids can turn into liquids almost spontaneously at room temperature. While not all matter is subject to change, the manipulation of such nano change is a cornerstone of nanotechnology research, and just one of the quirky facts that you probably weren’t aware of. Here are 5 more things you didn’t know about nanotechnology:
1- 1/3 of Americans find nanotechnology morally acceptable A recent study conducted out of the University of Wisconsin-Madison found that out of 1,015 adult Americans polled, only 29.5% agreed that nanotechnology was morally acceptable. In stark contrast 54.1% of Brits, 62.7% of Germans and 72.1% of French survey participants found the technology acceptable.
Lead researcher and professor in the Department of Life Sciences Communications at the UW-Madison, Dietram Scheufele, believes that the answer to this discrepancy lies in religion. He says that Americans hold the view that nanotechnology research is akin to "playing God," adding that a lack of understanding contributes to a perception where nanotechnology is equated with biotechnology and stem cell research. While nanotechnology does have the potential for biologic interaction, many current applications are strictly electronic.
Scheufele cites data from the World Values Survey to support his argument. The survey shows that U.S. respondents scored between eight and nine on a 10-point scale when asked how much guidance God provides in their daily lives. European respondents in the UK, Germany and France, consistently scored below five. While such indirect evidence confirms nothing, it does fuel Scheufele’s theory that religion acts as a perception filter -- a filter that he fears might hinder America’s acceptance of future emerging technologies.
2- Microorganisms can manufacture nanotechnology Can we at least go one day without hearing news about bacteria or viruses? Perhaps not, but at least the news is often good. Our manipulation of the microscopic is a never-ending process, and the application of such to nanotechnology is just another prime example.
Back in 2004, researchers at the University of Texas in Austin took the ever-popular E. coli bacteria and manipulated a batch to create superconductor nanocrystals that may one day be found inside the next generation of optical computers. Tiny optical computers of the future might use optical signals rather than electrical ones to process data, and superconductor nanocrystals manufactured by bacteria will function as the light-emitting diodes (LEDS) necessary to drive optical signaling.
Viruses can also be made into nanotech factories. In 2006, MIT scientists harnessed the manufacturing abilities of small bacteriophages (viruses that infect bacteria) to build nanowires for use in nano-size lithium-ion batteries.
3- Some nanomaterials can self-assemble The bottom-up approach to manufacturing nanotechnologies is arguably the most exciting example of nano’s potential. Molecules can be grown under controlled conditions and influenced to come together to form various configurations (depending on their charge or other natural properties of molecular chemistry). This simple process is even being expanded to the point where the vision of a self-assembling microcomputer is no longer regarded as fiction.
Examples of complex self-assembly are widespread. Researchers in Sweden have literally grown nanowires from the ground-up, forming a complex nanoscale tree that the research team plans to fit with solar “leaves,” thus forming a sort of nano solar panel.
Beyond the simple benefits of production, the true advantage of actually growing nanomaterials from the ground-up is that they maintain consistent quality and do not succumb to imperfections that a normal manufacturing process might yield. A potential pitfall, however, is envisioned by the techno-worrisome who fear that the self-assembly processes may run astray, leading humanity toward a Terminator scenario of robo-hostility.
4- You might be wearing nanotechnology right now Complex microcomputers built on nanotechnology might be a thing of the future, but simpler first-generation nanomaterials are literally all around us, and certainly more prevalent than you might think.
Various sunscreens, cosmetics and even clothing have benefited from the recent surge in nanotechnology. Take clothing for example. Companies such as Dockers, Eddie Bauer, Gap, Old Navy, and Perry Ellis have latched on to new technology that has been made available by the Nano-Tex company to create carefree, performance clothing items virtually stainproof.
To create this revolutionary clothing material, cotton fabrics are soaked in a solution containing trillions of nanotech fibers, which are then heated to form strong chemical bonds between the nanofibers and the cotton threads. Though the final product looks and feels unchanged, it provides incredible resistance to liquids, whether from stains or sweat, and it can even resist wrinkles.
Nanoscale enhancements to classic clothing materials like cotton will revolutionize the high-tech couture of tomorrow. Beyond clothing, stain- or dirt-proof interior furnishings such as carpets or couches will follow suit shortly. When combined with new nanotech-inspired disinfectants, the result will be a healthier and more manageable home.
5- Nanotechnology is being used against the Taliban British Special Forces are currently using six-inch Miniature Air Vehicles (MAV) called WASPs for reconnaissance in Afghanistan. These WASPS can be fitted with C4 explosives for kamikaze hits on snipers. Meanwhile, the Israeli army is developing a miniature robot, nicknamed the “bionic hornet,” to run anti-militant operations in tight quarters. MIT’s Institute for Soldier Nanotechnologies is just another institution striving to improve the survival of soldiers through advancements such as shock-resistant and regenerative body armor, and laser and energy-pulsing weapons. Whether you like it or not, Halo might soon become a reality.
While the future military applications of nanotechnology would totally make for one cool video game, there is global concern as to the threat of such weapons. An unstable arms race fueled by molecular manufacturing (nanotechnology) is being called by some as the single most dangerous threat to the world in the coming decades. Nanoweapons are easy to build, conceal, maintain, and deliver, which makes them almost impossible to track and regulate. Furthermore, nanoweapons become obsolete almost immediately, forcing nations toward perpetual development in an inevitable and unstable arms race, unless a conscious global understanding can be achieved -- and one can only hope that the latter will be the case.