(NHI Nanoblog) Where’s nanotechnology going? What’s worked over the last decade, and what still needs improvement? Where should the field be in 2020?
A panel of American experts on the science of the super-small spent the better part of a year thinking about those questions and more, with the help of counterparts around the world. This week, Mihail C. Roco, the National Science Foundation adviser for the group, discussed its report at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington (here’s his presentation; a video of his talk should be available soon).
The report’s official name is “Nanotechnology Research Directions for Societal Needs in 2020 Retrospective and Outlook.” The short version is “Nano 2.”
Roco, the senior adviser for nanotechnology at the NSF, said the field has sustained academic interest, generated cutting-edge science, and evolved as a focus for safety and regulation for a decade. The tiny materials — a nanometer is a billionth of a meter — are turning up in everything from processors in mobile phones to cancer treatments that use a magnetic field to help target tumors.
Roco said the field needs to move from components to multifaceted systems, from breathtaking discoveries to “general-purpose technology.”
He laid out 12 “trends to 2020,” outlining some directions for the field, including personalized nanomedicine and a shift to “active” nanosystems.
Also on the list is environmental health and safety, and a system for supervising nano-based products.
“It’s no longer ad hoc,” he said. “It’s a different kind of governance.”
There wasn’t much thought given to environmental health and safety and nanotechnology until about 2004, Roco said. Since then, plenty of daunting research has emerged that has raised questions about the safety of a number of nanomaterials, especially carbon nanotubes. Going forward, Roco said, it’s “essential” that the field deal with the risks in a serious way.
Our understanding of the perils of nanotechnology will keep growing as more data come in, Roco said, giving researchers a way to make decisions based on evidence, not just prediction. Ultimately, the dangers will be balanced against the promise of these materials.
“Pasteur developed the viruses and anyone could take the viruses and put it in the water system in a town and kill all the people. It didn’t happen,” he said. “As you go faster with the car, the risk of an accident increases. But you’d like to think of the advantage of the speed of the car, maybe.”