It’s the 20th anniversary of the US National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI) and, now, scientists and policymakers will be celebrating and analyzing the results on October 10, 2023 according to a September 18, 2023 post on the JD Supra Nano and Other Emerging Chemical Technologies blog, Note: A link has been removed,
On October 10, 2023, the National Nanotechnology Coordination Office (NNCO) will host a symposium entitled “Enabling the Nanotechnology Revolution: Celebrating the 20th Anniversary of the 21st Century Nanotechnology Research and Development Act” at the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. Experts will address the importance of nanotechnology in microelectronics, optics, advanced polymers, quantum engineering, medicine, education, manufacturing, and more. Discussions will also focus on the environmental, health, and safety implications of nanomaterials, as well as the National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI) community’s efforts around inclusion, diversity, equity, and access.
You can register and find more information on the National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI) anniversary symposium webpage, Note: A link has been removed,
Scientists and engineers across many fields and disciplines are united by their work at the nanoscale. Their diverse efforts have helped produce everything from faster microchips to powerful mRNA vaccines. The transformative impact of this work has been spurred by the coordination and focus on U.S. nanotechnology established by the 21st Century Nanotechnology Research and Development Act in 2003. Celebrating such a broad impact and envisioning the future can be quite challenging, but this event will bring together voices from across the emerging technology landscape. There will be experts who can speak on the importance of nanotechnology in quantum engineering, optics, EHS, plastics, DEIA, microelectronics, medicine, education, manufacturing, and more. We can’t predict what will emerge from this lively discussion between researchers, policymakers, members of industry, educators, and the public, but the conversation can only benefit from including more diverse perspectives – especially yours.
You have the option of registering in-person attendance or for virtual attendance.
Here’s the:
AGENDA
9:00-9:05 Welcome and Introduction
9:05-9:30 Opening Remarks on the NNI
9:30-10:15 Morning Keynote
10:15-10:30 Coffee Break
10:30-11:15 Panel: Responsible Development
11:15-12:00 Panel: Fundamental Research
12:00-1:00 Lunch and Networking
1:00-1:45 Keynote Panel: The Future of Nanotechnology
1:45-2:30 Panel: Workforce Development
2:30-2:45 Break
2:45-3:30 Panel: Infrastructure
3:30-4:15 Panel: Commercialization
4:15-5:00 Closing Keynote
Reception to follow
If you’re curious about the panelists and speakers, you will find a list with pictures and links to profile pages on the NNI’s anniversary symposium webpage.
Nano4EARTH Roundtable Discussion on Batteries and Energy Storage
September 26, 2023 9:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. ET Online and L’Enfant Plaza SW, Washington, D.C.
The Nano4EARTH roundtable discussion on batteries and energy storage aims to identify fundamental knowledge gaps, needs, and opportunities to advance current electrification goals. By convening stakeholders from different sectors, backgrounds, and expertise the goal of this roundtable is to identify applicable lessons across the spectrum of technologies, discuss system-specific needs, scalability and commercialization challenges, and potential paths forward. These needs could have a near-term impact on energy efficiency, sustainable development, and climate change. The moderated discussion will tackle all aspects of the topic – ranging from exciting R&D opportunities to commercialization challenges – by featuring a small group of experts from different sectors and backgrounds.
This roundtable is a critical part of the Nano4EARTH National Nanotechnology Challenge, which aims to leverage recent investments in understanding and controlling matter at the nanoscale to develop technologies and industries that address climate change. Nano4EARTH focuses on facilitating opportunities for members of the nanotechnology community to convene, collaborate, and share resources. Nano4EARTH also strives to provide mechanisms that support technology development and commercialization of nanotechnology-enabled climate solutions.
The topic of this roundtable was identified at the Nano4EARTH kick-off workshop (summary readout and video archive) as a particularly promising area that could have an impact in a short time frame (four years or less). This roundtable is the second of four.
MEETING LOCATION:
Online and the National Nanotechnology Coordination Office: Suite 8001, 470 L’Enfant Plaza SW, Washington, DC 20024. Directions are available here.
It’s been years since the last time it’s been featured here and i can’t remember how I stumbled across PCAST’s ([US] President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology) latest meeting but thank you.
Day 1: discussion and consideration for approval: A letter on advancing public engagement with the sciences & A Report on the seventh assessment of the national nanotechnology initiative [emphases mine]
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The video of the July 27, 2023 meeting is here on the PCAST YouTube channel, as well as, here on the PCAST 2023 Meetings webpage. It runs approximately 1 hr. and 22 mins.
Surprisingly (to me), science engagement took up more than 1/2 of the time (45 – 50 mins.). One of the recommendations was to get more community participation (they didn’t mention citizen science; the committee mentioned discussing values) and there was talk about listening more to the community (they acknowledged that experts tend not to do that enough).
Then, it was time for the 7th assessment of National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI). Less time and more drama: the recommendation was to sunset or revise the 21st Century Nanotechnology R & D Act (2003). After 20 years, nanotechnology is considered ‘mature’ and the approach needs to change as applications become the focus of the work.
The documents for both science engagement (a letter to the US president) and 7th assessment of the NNI (a report) will be uploaded to the PCAST Documents & Reports webpage by mid- to late August 2023.
Should you be interested in the US PCAST discussions on artificial intelligence, scroll down to the May 18-19, 2023 meeting on the PCAST 2023 Meetings webpage.
Announced in October 2022, the US government’s Nano4EARTH is the Biden-Harris {President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris] Administration’s first national nanotechnology challenge. (You can find out more about the challenge in my November 28, 2022 posting.)
More recently, JD Supra’s February 22, 2023 news item notes Nano4EARTH’s kick-off workshop (Note: Links have been removed),
The kickoff workshop for Nano4EARTH was held January 24-25, 2023. Nano4EARTH will leverage recent investments in understanding and controlling matter at the nanoscale to develop technologies, industries, and training opportunities that address climate change. On January 26, 2023, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) issued a press release summarizing the workshop. According to OSTP, more than 400 people across sectors, with diverse expertise and perspectives, participated in the workshop. OSTP states that discussions focused on identifying nanotechnologies that will have an impact on climate change in four years or less, in addition to sharing resources to address barriers to entrepreneurship and technology adoption. Workshop participants identified goals and metrics to maintain momentum throughout the challenge. New connections and networks spanning federal agencies, non-federal organizations, and industry were created and several examples of collaborations and events centered on nanotechnology and climate change developed organically between participants.
Battery technology has seen increased adoption in personal vehicles and long-term energy storage solutions, but further advances in Li-ion, as well as new chemistries and architectures, show tremendous and broad potential. It is critical that research directions are well matched with particular use cases.
Catalysts leveraging new understandings of nanoscale materials and phenomena could optimize many high-greenhouse gas emitting industrial processes, minimize the need for rare-earth metals, and serve as a precursor for alternative energy sources such as green hydrogen and electrofuels.
Coatings and other material innovations are likely to increase the overall efficiency of nearly any industrial process and lead to more resilient structures and devices, especially in changing and harsh environments. Examples include reflective coatings, corrosion protection, heat management in computing, lubricants and other additives, and membranes for separations. Drop-in solutions would have a more near-term impact.
Capture of greenhouse gasses through advanced materials and sorbents (e.g., metal organic frameworks) and nature mimicking processes (e.g., artificial photosynthesis), especially deployed at the point of production, could be impactful but deploying at scale has significant challenges. In the near term, renewable energy production and efficient transmission is worthy of increased attention.
In the months to come, the NNCO will convene a series of roundtable discussions that focus on some of the highest potential nanotechnologies identified at the kick-off workshop. Subject matter experts and federal partners will be asked to match nanotechnology opportunities to urgent climate change needs, with strong consideration of the broader societal needs and impacts. Feedback from the kick-off workshop will also inform additional activities and events to facilitate conversations and collaborations across this growing community.
The US National Nanotechnology Initiative-hosted Nano4EARTH Kick-off Workshop page features the meeting agenda where there are links to video recordings of each session.
Today [October 7, 2022], to mark National Nanotechnology Day, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) and the National Nanotechnology Coordination Office (NNCO) are making key announcements that aim to advance the Biden-Harris Administration’s efforts to leverage the promise of science and technology to benefit all Americans. They also complement the Administration’s ongoing CHIPS and Science Act implementation efforts that will ensure the United States remains a world leader in the industries of tomorrow.
“National Nanotechnology Day is an opportunity to celebrate the NNCO’s – and Biden-Harris Administration’s – efforts to advance research breakthroughs on the nanoscale that impact nearly every scientific discipline and lay the foundation for emerging fields and technologies,” said newly announced National Nanotechnology Coordination Office Director Dr. Branden Brough. “As evidenced by this week’s Nobel Prize announcements highlighting work in quantum information science and click chemistry, the nanotechnology community is leveraging the Nation’s investments in research at the level of atoms and molecules to find solutions to address today’s most pressing challenges, including climate change, pandemic preparedness, and domestic microelectronics manufacturing.”
Biden-Harris Administration’s National Nanotechnology Challenge, Nano4EARTH
The National Nanotechnology Coordination Office is announcing the inaugural National Nanotechnology Challenge, Nano4EARTH. Nano4EARTH will leverage recent investments in understanding and controlling matter at the nanoscale to develop technologies and industries that address climate change. Nano4EARTH recognizes the role nanotechnology plays in: Evaluating, monitoring, and detecting climate change status and trends; Averting future greenhouse gas emissions; Removing existing greenhouse gasses; Training and educating a highly skilled workforce to harness nanotechnology solutions; and developing Higher resilience to – and mitigation of – climate change-induced pressures for improved societal/economic resilience.
The NNCO supports the National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI), a White House-led initiative that coordinates the nanotechnology R&D activities of 20 federal government agencies. Identified in the 2021 NNI Strategic Plan, National Nanotechnology Challenges are a new mechanism to mobilize and connect the NNI community so it can help to address global societal challenges.
Members of the NNI community – the scientists, engineers, entrepreneurs, and government leaders developing solutions at the nanoscale – are invited to participate in Nano4EARTH! By doing so, they can support the United States’ goal of achieving net-zero carbon emissions by 2050 and inspire and build the STEM workforce capacity that will help develop and implement climate change mitigation and resilience solutions. Links to relevant agency programs, information about the public kick-off workshop, and a link to join a mailing list to get involved can be found on the Nano4EARTH webpage. The Nano4EARTH kick-off workshop (to be held in early 2023) will serve as an information-gathering exercise to identify key feasible outputs of the challenge and effective ways to measure success.
National Nanotechnology Coordination Office (NNCO) Leadership
The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and The National Nanotechnology Coordination Office are announcing Dr. Branden Brough as the new Director of the National Nanotechnology Coordination Office (NNCO) and Dr. Quinn Spadola as its Deputy Director.
Dr. Brough joins the NNCO from the Molecular Foundry, a U.S. Department of Energy-funded nanoscale science research center that provides users from around the world with access to cutting-edge expertise and instrumentation. He will also serve as OSTP’s Assistant Director for Nanotechnology. As the Molecular Foundry’s Deputy Director, Dr. Brough was responsible for helping guide the organization’s scientific plans and initiatives, while also managing the center’s operations. Before joining the Molecular Foundry, Dr. Brough worked at the NIH’s National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases, where he led strategic policy and planning activities, as well as Congressional and public outreach efforts. Dr. Brough received his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering – focusing on the integration of synthetic motor molecules and natural self-assembling proteins into micro/nanotechnologies – from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).
Dr. Spadola was the Associate Director of Education for the National Nanotechnology Coordinated Infrastructure (NNCI), a network of open nanotechnology laboratory user facilities supported by the National Science Foundation, and the Director of Education and Outreach for the Southeastern Nanotechnology Infrastructure Corridor NNCI site at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Prior to joining the Georgia Institute of Technology, Dr. Spadola was the Education and Outreach Coordinator and a Technical Advisor to the Director at NNCO. She received her Ph.D. in physics from Arizona State University and her MFA in Science and Natural History Filmmaking from Montana State University.
H/t to Lynn L. Bergeson’s and Carla N. Hutton’s October 8, 2022 posting on The National Law Review website for the news about the US National Nanotechnology Day on October 9, 2022.
Here’s more from the US National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) October 6, 2022 posting by Adrienne Eastlake, Gary Roth, and Nicole Neu-Baker on the NIOSH Science blog (Note: Links and footnotes have been removed),
Every year on October 9th we celebrate National Nanotechnology Day. The date 10-9 pays homage to the nanometer scale: 10–9 (one billionth of a meter). Anything that can be measured in nanometers is extremely small! For instance, the width of a strand of human hair is about 90,000 nanometers, bacteria are between 300–5,000 nanometers, viruses are 5–300 nanometers, the diameter of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) is 2.5 nanometers, and a single atom is 0.1–0.5 nanometers. A healthy young adult’s fingernail grows an average of just over 1 nanometer per second (3.47 millimeters per month on average)!1 National Nanotechnology Day was created to help raise awareness of nanotechnology, to show how it is currently used in products that enrich our daily lives and to consider future challenges and opportunities.
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Engineered nanomaterials (ENMs) are materials intentionally produced to have particle sizes between 1 and 100 nanometers in at least one dimension. These materials can be nanoparticles, nanotubes, or nanoplates, depending on their shape. ENMs typically have new or unique properties different from those of larger forms of the same material, making them desirable for specific product applications. These properties can contribute to increased elasticity, tensile strength, electrical conduction, and reactivity. Increasingly, they are added into existing materials to give these properties to bulk materials (such as plastics or metals). Consumer products using ENMs include cosmetics, sunscreen, food storage products, appliances, clothing, electronics, computers, sporting goods, and coatings. ENMs are also used in state-of-the-art sensors and biomedical technologies. COVID-19 research and the development of vaccines depend heavily on nanotechnology, and many vaccines use nanotechnology to improve their effectiveness. You probably are interacting with nanotechnology-enabled products every day!
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Since the early 2000s, NIOSH has been at the forefront of efforts to characterize potential workplace hazards for those working with ENMs and to ensure safe and healthy workplaces, including the creation of the NIOSH Nanotechnology Research Center in 2004. Since then, NIOSH has published a quantitative risk assessment and an elemental mass-based recommended exposure limit (REL) for each of the following: carbon nanotubes/nanofibers,4 nanoscale titanium dioxide, 5 and silver nanomaterials.6 In addition, the poster Controlling Health Hazards When Working With Nanomaterials: Questions to Ask Before You Start is a helpful and easy-to-use visual resource for the workplace.
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In collaboration with RTI International, NIOSH administered a survey developed by the RAND Corporation to North American companies working with nanomaterials to assess health and safety practices and the impact of efforts made by NIOSH to protect worker health and safety.9 Forty-five companies in the United States and Canada that fabricate, manufacture, handle, dispose, or otherwise use nanomaterials completed the online survey in 2019. The survey included research questions about nanomaterials in use and the overall occupational health and safety culture at the companies. Additionally, other questions asked about whether the companies interacted with NIOSH or used NIOSH resources to inform their health and safety practices and policies. More than a third (37.8%) of the 45 respondents reported using at least one NIOSH resource for information about safe handling of nanomaterials. Larger companies were more likely to report using NIOSH resources than companies employing fewer than 50 employees. While the survey was limited by the small sample size, it provided valuable insight, including that future NIOSH outreach should specifically target small businesses that use or handle nanomaterials.
We hope you find a way to celebrate National Nanotechnology Day! The National Nanotechnology Initiative (nano.gov) suggests running a 100 Billion Nanometer Dash. Sounds like quite a distance, but it is just 100 meters (328 feet) or 6.2% of a mile. As we continue to provide guidance and recommendations to keep workers safe when working with ENMs, we will be right there with you until you cross the finish line… one nanometer at a time. Good luck!
i stumbled across an August 4, 2022 tvworldwide.com news release about a video celbrating the US National Nanotechnology Initiative’s (NNI) over 20 years of operation, (Note: A link has been removed),
TV Worldwide, since 1999, a pioneering web-based global TV network, announced that it was releasing a video trailer highlighting a previously released documentary on NNI over the past 20 years, entitled, ‘NNI Retrospective Video: Creating a National Initiative’.
The video and its trailer were produced in cooperation with the National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI), the National Science Foundation and the University of North Carolina Greensboro.
Video Documentary Synopsis
Nanotechnology is a megatrend in science and technology at the beginning of the 21 Century. The National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI) has played a key role in advancing the field after it was announced by President Clinton in January 2000. Neil Lane was Presidential Science Advisor. Mike Roco proposed the initiative at the White House in March 1999 on behalf of the Interagency Working Group on Nanotechnology and was named the founding Chair of NSET to implement NNI beginning with Oct. 2000. NSF led the preparation of this initiative together with other agencies including NIH, DoD, DOE, NASA, and EPA. Jim Murday was named the first Director of NNCO to support NSET. The scientific and societal success of NNI has been recognized in the professional communities, National Academies, PCAST, and Congress. Nanoscale science, engineering and technology are strongly connected and collectively called Nanotechnology.
This video documentary was made after the 20th NNI grantees conference at NSF. It is focused on creating and implementing NNI, through video interviews. The interviews focused on three questions: (a) Motivation and how NNI started; (b) The process and reason for the success in creating NNI; (c) Outcomes of NNI after 20 years, and how the initial vision has been realized.
About the National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI)
The National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI) is a U.S. Government research and development (R&D) initiative. Over thirty Federal departments, independent agencies, and commissions work together toward the shared vision of a future in which the ability to understand and control matter at the nanoscale leads to ongoing revolutions in technology and industry that benefit society. The NNI enhances interagency coordination of nanotechnology R&D, supports a shared infrastructure, enables leveraging of resources while avoiding duplication, and establishes shared goals, priorities, and strategies that complement agency-specific missions and activities.
The NNI participating agencies work together to advance discovery and innovation across the nanotechnology R&D enterprise. The NNI portfolio encompasses efforts along the entire technology development pathway, from early-stage fundamental science through applications-driven activities. Nanoscience and nanotechnology are prevalent across the R&D landscape, with an ever-growing list of applications that includes nanomedicine, nanoelectronics, water treatment, precision agriculture, transportation, and energy generation and storage. The NNI brings together representatives from multiple agencies to leverage knowledge and resources and to collaborate with academia and the private sector, as appropriate, to promote technology transfer and facilitate commercialization. The breadth of NNI-supported infrastructure enables not only the nanotechnology community but also researchers from related disciplines.
In addition to R&D efforts, the NNI is helping to build the nanotechnology workforce of the future, with focused efforts from K–12 through postgraduate research training. The responsible development of nanotechnology has been an integral pillar of the NNI since its inception, and the initiative proactively considers potential implications and technology applications at the same time. Collectively, these activities ensure that the United States remains not only the place where nanoscience discoveries are made, but also where these discoveries are translated and manufactured into products to benefit society.
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I’m embedding the trailer here and a lipid nanoparticle question follows (The origin story told in Vancouver [Canada] is that the work was started at the University of British Columbia by Pieter Quilty.),
I was curious about what involvement the US NNI had with the development of lipid nanoparticles (LNPs) and found a possible answer to that question on Wikipedia The LNP Wikipedia entry certainly gives the bulk of the credit to Quilty but there was work done prior to his involvement (Note: Links have been removed),
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A significant obstacle to using LNPs as a delivery vehicle for nucleic acids is that in nature, lipids and nucleic acids both carry a negative electric charge—meaning they do not easily mix with each other.[19] While working at Syntex in the mid-1980s,[20]Philip Felgner [emphasis mine] pioneered the use of artificially-created cationic lipids (positively-charged lipids) to bind lipids to nucleic acids in order to transfect the latter into cells.[21] However, by the late 1990s, it was known from in vitro experiments that this use of cationic lipids had undesired side effects on cell membranes.[22]
During the late 1990s and 2000s, Pieter Cullis of the University of British Columbia [emphasis mine] developed ionizable cationic lipids which are “positively charged at an acidic pH but neutral in the blood.”[8] Cullis also led the development of a technique involving careful adjustments to pH during the process of mixing ingredients in order to create LNPs which could safely pass through the cell membranes of living organisms.[19][23] As of 2021, the current understanding of LNPs formulated with such ionizable cationic lipids is that they enter cells through receptor-mediated endocytosis and end up inside endosomes.[8] The acidity inside the endosomes causes LNPs’ ionizable cationic lipids to acquire a positive charge, and this is thought to allow LNPs to escape from endosomes and release their RNA payloads.[8]
From 2005 into the early 2010s, LNPs were investigated as a drug delivery system for small interfering RNA (siRNA) drugs.[8] In 2009, Cullis co-founded a company called Acuitas Therapeutics to commercialize his LNP research [emphasis mine]; Acuitas worked on developing LNPs for Alnylam Pharmaceuticals’s siRNA drugs.[24] In 2018, the FDA approved Alnylam’s siRNA drug Onpattro (patisiran), the first drug to use LNPs as the drug delivery system.[3][8]
By that point in time, siRNA drug developers like Alnylam were already looking at other options for future drugs like chemical conjugate systems, but during the 2010s, the earlier research into using LNPs for siRNA became a foundation for new research into using LNPs for mRNA.[8] Lipids intended for short siRNA strands did not work well for much longer mRNA strands, which led to extensive research during the mid-2010s into the creation of novel ionizable cationic lipids appropriate for mRNA.[8] As of late 2020, several mRNA vaccines for SARS-CoV-2 use LNPs as their drug delivery system, including both the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine and the Pfizer–BioNTech COVID-19 vaccines.[3]Moderna uses its own proprietary ionizable cationic lipid called SM-102, while Pfizer and BioNTech licensed an ionizable cationic lipid called ALC-0315 from Acuitas.[8] [emphases mine]
You can find out more about Philip Felgner here on his University of California at Irvine (UCI) profile page.
I wish they had been a little more careful about some of the claims that Thomas Kalil made about lipid nanoparticles in both the trailer and video but, getting back to the trailer (approx. 3 mins.) and the full video (approx. 25 mins.), either provides insight into a quite extraordinary effort.
