Nanotech Is Booming Biggest in U.S., Report Says

The science of the very small is getting big in the United States. Americans are investing more money, publishing more scientific papers and winning more patents than anyone else in the quickly growing field of nanotechnology, according to the first comprehensive federal report on the science of things only a few hundred millionths of an inch in size.

But the nation's lead may be short-lived, the report warns, as Europe and Asia show evidence of gaining.

Moreover, important questions about the technology's safety and oversight remain unanswered and under-studied, the report concludes. Research on the health effects of nanomaterials -- and necessary revisions in the way they are regulated -- are lagging, government officials said, even as the novel materials find their way into an ever-widening spectrum of products, including clothing, cosmetics and computer hard drives.

The toxicity studies now underway are "a drop in the bucket compared to what needs to be done," John H. Marburger III, science adviser to President Bush and chief of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, said at a media briefing last week.

Nanotechnology, which deals with materials and devices manufactured on the scale of billionths of a meter, is widely touted as the engine of the next industrial revolution. The promise is not so much its ability to produce ever smaller and more efficient machines -- although that is certainly one aspect of its attraction. The main benefit of gaining control over such tiny bits of matter is that ordinary materials behave in extraordinary ways when shaved down to the scale of atoms and molecules.

Platinum, for example, which is at the heart of catalytic converters, removes pollutants from auto exhaust far more efficiently as nanoparticles. That can reduce the quantities of the expensive metal needed -- and the amount that ends up in junkyards and dumps.

Similarly, unlike larger chunks of carbon -- such as the graphite in pencils, which does not conduct electricity well -- microscopically thin nanotubes of carbon are excellent conductors of electricity. Before long, they may replace copper wire for some applications.

The new report is the work of the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, a 24-member committee of experts from industry, academia and research institutions tasked with periodically assessing the nation's nanotech research and development programs. The first such report, prepared with the help of dozens of outside experts, is scheduled to be released next month but was previewed at a council meeting last week.

In terms of global competitiveness, the report offers good news for the United States -- at least for now.

"The data seem to conclusively say we are the leader," said E. Floyd Kvamme, co-chairman of the committee with Marburger. "But the data also conclusively say that a lot of others are getting interested."

For example, fully 50 percent of the research articles on "nano" published in the world's best scientific journals has come from U.S. labs, even though the United States accounts for only about 25 percent of global investment. The United States also leads in the number of nano-related patents, with about 1,000 issued in 2003, the last year for which statistics are available.

But U.S. dominance in publications has begun to shrink. And while Americans hold fully two-thirds of all recent nano patents, the fraction has been shrinking as other countries grab a bigger portion each year.

Similarly, with a federal investment in nanotechnology of about $1 billion last year, the United States outspent every other country, including the entire European Union. But Japan, China and Europe are all close behind, in the $900 million range each, with growth rates comparable to U.S. increases.

The U.S. spending lead is being boosted by unparalleled private investment (accounting for nearly half of the $4 billion spent by corporations and venture capital globally) and a major investment by the states, which see nano as a ticket to revitalizing old industrial bases.

"The states are spending mountains of money," Kvamme said -- about 40 cents for every federal dollar of investment. "They are the folks turning this into a commercial enterprise."

That enterprise is still very young. For the next five years, the report predicts, nanotechnology will for the most part produce novel materials such as the stain-proof fabrics and super-strong tennis rackets already on the market, as well as catalysts and other products useful to the chemical industry.

Longer term, the field is expected to produce medical products, including nanospheres that attach themselves to tumor cells and then fatally fry them, and novel materials for absorbing poisons from the environment. Further out, scientists envision development of "bio-enhancement" nanoproducts that would give people greater strength, better vision and perhaps even computer-assisted thinking -- goals that raise ethical issues that already are "very much on Congress's mind," Marburger said.

The report notes that the extreme chemical reactivity of nanomaterials makes them potentially toxic. The threat to consumers seems modest, it concludes, but may be significant for factory workers exposed to nanodust.

To date, however, federal regulations limiting exposures do not differentiate between bulk quantities of chemicals and their potentially much more toxic nanoparticulate forms.

"Existing rules for exposure to bulk substances don't apply" and will need to be changed, Marburger said. One of the things holding that up, he added, is the need to work out an internationally agreed upon naming system for the new materials so that everyone will be talking the same chemical and regulatory language.

Even if nanomaterials are relatively safe while embedded in larger products, it will be important to find out how they will affect the environment and human health after those products wear out, said David Rejeski of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, which is studying that issue with Yale University scientists.

"Who knows what happens when you grind this stuff up, incinerate it or it goes into a landfill?" Rejeski asked. "These products may be safe in the tennis racket, but all products become obsolete at some point" -- if nothing else because they go out of fashion.

"Those teal-colored nanopants are going to be out of style next year," he said, only half-joking. "Then what?"

Source: Washington Post