Tag Archives: US National Nanotechnology

$1.4B for US National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI) in 2017 budget

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According to an April 1, 2016 news item on Nanowerk, the US National Nanotechnology (NNI) has released its 2017 budget supplement,

The President’s Budget for Fiscal Year 2017 provides $1.4 billion for the National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI), affirming the important role that nanotechnology continues to play in the Administration’s innovation agenda. NNI
Cumulatively totaling nearly $24 billion since the inception of the NNI in 2001, the President’s 2017 Budget supports nanoscale science, engineering, and technology R&D at 11 agencies.

Another 9 agencies have nanotechnology-related mission interests or regulatory responsibilities.

An April 1, 2016 NNI news release, which originated the news item, affirms the Obama administration’s commitment to the NNI and notes the supplement serves as an annual report amongst other functions,

Throughout its two terms, the Obama Administration has maintained strong fiscal support for the NNI and has implemented new programs and activities to engage the broader nanotechnology community to support the NNI’s vision that the ability to understand and control matter at the nanoscale will lead to new innovations that will improve our quality of life and benefit society.

This Budget Supplement documents progress of these participating agencies in addressing the goals and objectives of the NNI. It also serves as the Annual Report for the NNI called for under the provisions of the 21st Century Nanotechnology Research and Development Act of 2003 (Public Law 108-153, 15 USC §7501). The report also addresses the requirement for Department of Defense reporting on its nanotechnology investments, per 10 USC §2358.

For additional details and to view the full document, visit www.nano.gov/2017BudgetSupplement.

I don’t seem to have posted about the 2016 NNI budget allotment but 2017’s $1.4B represents a drop of $100M since 2015’s $1.5 allotment.

The 2017 NNI budget supplement describes the NNI’s main focus,

Over the past year, the NNI participating agencies, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), and the National Nanotechnology Coordination Office (NNCO) have been charting the future directions of the NNI, including putting greater focus on promoting commercialization and increasing education and outreach efforts to the broader nanotechnology community. As part of this effort, and in keeping with recommendations from the 2014 review of the NNI by the President’s Council of Advisors for Science and Technology, the NNI has been working to establish Nanotechnology-Inspired Grand Challenges, ambitious but achievable goals that will harness nanotechnology to solve National or global problems and that have the potential to capture the public’s imagination. Based upon inputs from NNI agencies and the broader community, the first Nanotechnology-Inspired Grand Challenge (for future computing) was announced by OSTP on October 20, 2015, calling for a collaborative effort to “create a new type of computer that can proactively interpret and learn from data, solve unfamiliar problems using what it has learned, and operate with the energy efficiency of the human brain.” This Grand Challenge has generated broad interest within the nanotechnology community—not only NNI agencies, but also industry, technical societies, and private foundations—and planning is underway to address how the agencies and the community will work together to achieve this goal. Topics for additional Nanotechnology-Inspired Grand Challenges are under review.

Interestingly, it also offers an explanation of the images on its cover (Note: Links have been removed),

US_NNI_2017_budget_cover

About the cover

Each year’s National Nanotechnology Initiative Supplement to the President’s Budget features cover images illustrating recent developments in nanotechnology stemming from NNI activities that have the potential to make major contributions to National priorities. The text below explains the significance of each of the featured images on this year’s cover.

US_NNI_2017_front_cover_CloseUp

Front cover featured images (above): Images illustrating three novel nanomedicine applications. Center: microneedle array for glucose-responsive insulin delivery imaged using fluorescence microscopy. This “smart insulin patch” is based on painless microneedles loaded with hypoxia-sensitive vesicles ~100 nm in diameter that release insulin in response to high glucose levels. Dr. Zhen Gu and colleagues at the University of North Carolina (UNC) at Chapel Hill and North Carolina State University have demonstrated that this patch effectively regulates the blood glucose of type 1 diabetic mice with faster response than current pH-sensitive formulations. The inset image on the lower right shows the structure of the nanovesicles; each microneedle contains more than 100 million of these vesicles. The research was supported by the American Diabetes Association, the State of North Carolina, the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and the National Science Foundation (NSF). Left: colorized rendering of a candidate universal flu vaccine nanoparticle. The vaccine molecule, developed at the NIH Vaccine Research Center, displays only the conserved part of the viral spike and stimulates the production of antibodies to fight against the ever-changing flu virus. The vaccine is engineered from a ~13 nm ferritin core (blue) combined with a 7 nm influenza antigen (green). Image credit: NIH National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID). Right: colorized scanning electron micrograph of Ebola virus particles on an infected VERO E6 cell. Blue represents individual Ebola virus particles. The image was produced by John Bernbaum and Jiro Wada at NIAID. When the Ebola outbreak struck in 2014, the Food and Drug Administration authorized emergency use of lateral flow immunoassays for Ebola detection that use gold nanoparticles for visual interpretation of the tests.

US_NNI_2017_back_cover._CloseUp

Back cover featured images (above): Images illustrating examples of NNI educational outreach activities. Center: Comic from the NSF/NNI competition Generation Nano: Small Science Superheroes. Illustration by Amina Khan, NSF. Left of Center: Polymer Nanocone Array (biomimetic of antimicrobial insect surface) by Kyle Nowlin, UNC-Greensboro, winner from the first cycle of the NNI’s student image contest, EnvisioNano. Right of Center: Gelatin Nanoparticles in Brain (nasal delivery of stroke medication to the brain) by Elizabeth Sawicki, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, winner from the second cycle of EnvisioNano. Outside right: still photo from the video Chlorination-less (water treatment method using reusable nanodiamond powder) by Abelardo Colon and Jennifer Gill, University of Puerto Rico at Rio Piedras, the winning video from the NNI’s Student Video Contest. Outside left: Society of Emerging NanoTechnologies (SENT) student group at the University of Central Florida, one of the initial nodes in the developing U.S. Nano and Emerging Technologies Student Network; photo by Alexis Vilaboy.

New US government nano commercialization effort: nanosensors

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The latest announcement (this one about nanosensors) from the US National Nanotechnology Coordination Office (NNCO) on behalf of the US National Nanotechnology (NNI) gets a little confusing but hopefully I’ve managed to clarify things.

It starts off simply enough, from a June 22, 2015 news item on Azonano,

The National Nanotechnology Coordination Office (NNCO) is pleased to announce the launch of a workshop report and a web portal, efforts coordinated through and in support of the Nanotechnology Signature Initiative ‘Nanotechnology for Sensors and Sensors for Nanotechnology: Improving and Protecting Health, Safety, and the Environment’ (Sensors NSI). Together, these resources help pave the path forward for the development and commercialization of nanotechnology-enabled sensors and sensors for nanotechnology.

A June 19, 2015 NNCO news release on EurekAlert, which originated the news item, provides details about the report, the new portal, and the new series of webinars,

The workshop report is a summary of the National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI)-sponsored event held September 11-12, 2014, entitled ‘Sensor Fabrication, Integration, and Commercialization Workshop.’ The goal of the workshop was to identify and discuss challenges that are faced by the sensor development community during the fabrication, integration, and commercialization of sensors, particularly those employing or addressing issues of nanoscale materials and technologies.

Workshop attendees, including sensor developers and representative from Federal agencies, identified ways to help facilitate the commercialization of nanosensors, which include:

  • Enhancing communication among researchers, developers, manufacturers, customers, and the Federal Government agencies that support and regulate sensor development.
  • Leveraging resources by building testbeds for sensor developers.
  • Improving access of university and private researchers to federally supported facilities.
  • Encouraging sensor developers to consider and prepare for market and regulatory requirements early in the development process.

In response to discussions at the workshop, the NNI has also launched an NSI Sensors web portal to share information on the sensors development landscape, including funding agencies and opportunities, federally supported facilities, regulatory guidance, and published standards. Ongoing dialogue and collaboration among various stakeholder groups will be critical to effectively transitioning nanosensors to market and to meeting the U.S. need for a reliable and robust sensor infrastructure.

On Thursday June 25, 2015, from noon to 1 pm EDT, NNCO will host a webinar to summarize the highlights from the 2014 ‘Sensor Fabrication, Integration, and Commercialization Workshop’ and to introduce the newly developed Sensors NSI Web Portal. The webinar will also feature a Q&A segment with members of the public. Questions for the panel can be submitted to webinar@nnco.nano.gov from June 18 through the end of the webinar at 1 pm EDT on June 25, 2015.

Here’s the portal for what they’ve called the NSI [Nanotechnology Signature Initiative]: Nanotechnology for Sensors and Sensors for Nanotechnology — Improving and Protecting, Health Safety, and the Environment, also known as, Sensors NSI Web Portal.

Here’s the report titled, “Sensor Fabrication, Integration, and Commercialization Workshop [2014].”

As for the first webinar in this new series, from the National Signature Webinar Series: Resources for the Development of Nanosensors webpage,

The National Nanotechnology Coordination Office (NNCO) will host a webinar to summarize the highlights from the September 2014 Sensor Fabrication, Integration, and Commercialization Workshop and to introduce the newly developed Sensors NSI Web Portal, which was created to share information on the sensors development landscape, including Federal program and funding opportunities, federally supported facilities, regulatory guidance, and published standards.

On Thursday, June 25, 2015, from 12 noon to 1 pm EDT, Federal panelists will begin the event with a discussion of the findings from the Sensor Fabrication, Integration, and Commercialization Workshop, as well as a demonstration of the resources available on the Sensors NSI Portal.  [emphasis mine]

Federal panelists at the event will include:

This event will feature a Q&A segment with members of the public. Questions for the panel can be submitted to webinar@nnco.nano.gov from June 18 through the end of the webinar at 1 pm on June 25, 2015. The moderator reserves the right to group similar questions and to omit questions that are either repetitive or not directly related to the topic. Due to time constraints, it may not be possible to answer all questions.

You can find the link to register at the end/bottom of the event page.

The NNCO does have one other Public Webinar series, ‘NNCO Small- and Medium-sized Business Enterprise (SME) Webinar Series’. They have archived previously held webinars in this series. There are no upcoming webinars in this series currently scheduled.