This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon, Nov. 9, 2010 - "Nanotechnology is not science fiction. It is science. It's not just 'Honey, I shrunk the kids,' but a potential solution to many real-world problems we face."
Sen. Christopher S. "Kit" Bond ended his keynote speech at the 2010 Missouri NanoFrontiers Symposium with this endorsement of the new technology and exhorted the attending scientists and businesspeople to bring the discoveries of the laboratory into the home, the hospital and the battlefield.
The symposium was co-hosted last week by the University of Missouri-St. Louis and Washington University, and organized by representatives from the seven major research universities in the state and the St. Louis Institute of Nanomedicine. Researchers discussed recent advances in basic nanoscience and nanotechnologies as well as establishing partnerships between academia and industry.
"This is a cultural change for university research -- integrating their research accomplishments with local economic development," stated Jingyue (Jimmy) Liu, director of the Center for Nanoscience at the University of Missouri-St. Louis and co-chair of the symposium with Dong Qin of Washington University.
The scientific sessions focused on four topics:
- Nanomedicine, which promises to target medicines to the sites where they are needed
- Nanomaterials, which order atoms in ways different from "wet" chemistry to create new structures
- Energy, where new formulations can store energy better or can be used in green technologies
- Sensors, which can be used to detect chemical and biological threats
The scientists described such phenomena as a doughnut-shaped glass resonator that amplifies a light signal as it bounces around and around like sound in a whispering gallery, conductive polymers made into gel sheets that can roll up to make batteries, and radioactive gold nanoparticles targeted to irradiate tumor vasculature.
A final session was devoted togetting these new entities into the real world. Michael Nichols, vice president for Research and Economic Development for the University of Missouri system, pointed out that formerly most new products came from industry. Today 70 percent come from universities.
Missouri ranks ninth in the nation in federal research grant dollars, but only 27th in university start-up businesses. Much of the disparity can be traced to funding. For example, 30 states, including six surrounding states, have state-funded seed or venture capital funds. Missouri does not have such a tax-backed support. (See graphic at the end of the article.)
However, the University of Missouri system has established its own fund to support "proof of concept" for new ventures coming out of its labs. Proof of concept is a term used in commercialization, meaning making and testing prototypes, conducting market research, and developing a usable business plan.
From Research To The Marketplace
Universities and businesses around the state are using a number of devices to bring university research to market. For example, the NanoTechnology Enterprise Consortium (NTEC) teams the University of Missouri with small, medium, and large companies; currently they are working with a grant from the army to develop proposals for new technologies.
CORTEX, the Center of Research and Entrepreneurial Exchange, is a 240-acre bioscience research park district in midtown St. Louis. Sponsored by all three St. Louis research universities, as well as Barnes-Jewish Hospital Foundation and the Missouri Botanical Garden, its goal is to grow biotech companies with local research and to attract companies from elsewhere to locate within the park.
Phillip Buckler, COO of Kereos pharmaceutical company explained how university faculty members work with his company. Kereos is located in the Center for Emerging Technologies incubator in the CORTEX park. Its business is based upon diagnostic and therapeutic nanoparticles developed in the labs of Drs. Sam Wickline and Gregory Lanza at Washington University's Center for Advanced Imaging and Nanomedicine.
Lanza and Wickline developed particles for imaging that bind directly to atherosclerotic plaque -- an obviously useful diagnostic tool for assessing cardiovascular health. They transferred the technology to the Kereos labs. Kereos, in the process of scaling up for manufacturing, needed to make some changes in an original active ingredient. It had to do extensive re-testing to make sure the new formulation was equal or better than the original active ingredient. Wickline and Lanza were involved in evaluating the revised product and in devising future plans, including the beginning of preliminary proof-of- concept testing in humans early next year.
Such collaborations are a new model for university-industry relations.
Don Landy, vice president of Crosslink, Inc, a company that makes polymers for products as diverse as supercapacitors and corrosion resistant coatings, says that they could not be in business without several types of relationships with universities. Sometimes they hire university researchers as consultants on a project. They make use of the services offered at UMSL's Center for Nanoscience, where center personnel will characterize their products with special equipment such as the scanning electron microscope. They may also consult with Liu about how to interpret the microscopy.
At the conference, Landy learned of yet another local university facility that he could use. Washington University has one of 14 National Nanotechnology Infrastructure laboratories, paid for by both the university and the National Science Foundation. In this new state-of-the-art facility, local technology businesses are trained to use the equipment and then perform their own experiments with that equipment, 24/7, for a user fee. Since they can do the experiments or build prototypes on their own, intellectual property issues do not arise.
Liu expressed the hope that future conferences will be instrumental in developing a vigorous nanotechnology network for Missouri, and propel the state into a nationally recognized nanotechnology center.
More Information
Nanoscience and technology deal with very small units, typically smaller than 0.1 micrometer. A micrometer is one thousandth of a millimeter, or .00036 inches --way too small for the naked eye. A nanometer is one thousandth of that; small molecules are measured in nanometers.
Nanoscience deals with ordered structures, controlled in size and shape. For example, the effectiveness of particulate catalysts (materials that make chemical reactions go faster) is determined by their chemical formulas and by the arrangement of the atoms and the shape of the particles themselves.
Nanoparticles must be assembled into nanoarchitectural structures for maximum effectiveness. An example of nanoarchitecture, taken from nature, is the mitochondrion. In this intracellular structure, used to produce most of the cell's energy, enzyme catalysts are attached to the structure in a specific order so that the product of one reaction moves smoothly to the site of the next reaction, much like a factory assembly
Jo Seltzer is a freelance writer with more than 30 years on the research faculty at the Washington University School of Medicine and seven years teaching tech writing at WU's engineering school.