The US National Nanotechnology Initiative has spent billions of dollars on submicroscopic science in its first 10 years. Corie Lok finds out where the money went and what the initiative plans to do next. (Nature News)

Biomedical Microdevices (Volume 12, Number 4, 2010) is now available by subscription only.

Articles Include:

• “What We Know and Don’t Know About the Bioeffects of Nanoparticles: Developing Experimental Approaches for Safety Assessment” by Mel E. Stratmeyer, Peter L. Goering, Victoria M. Hitchins and Thomas H. Umbreit, 569-573.
• “Nanotechnology for Regenerative Medicine” by Dongwoo Khang, Joseph Carpenter, Young Wook Chun, Rajesh Pareta and Thomas J. Webster, 589-596.
• “Combinatorial Targeting and Nanotechnology Applications” by Glauco R. Souza, Fernanda I. Staquicini, Dawn R. Christianson, Michael G. Ozawa and J. Houston Miller, et al., 597-606.
• “Compressed Collagen Gel as the Scaffold for Skin Engineering” by Kuikui Hu, Hui Shi, Ji Zhu, Dan Deng and Guangdong Zhou, et al., 627-635.
• “Sustained Release of Insulin Through Skin by Intradermal Microdelivery System” by Yan Wu, Yunhua Gao, Guangjiong Qin, Suohui Zhang and Yuqin Qiu, et al., 665-671.
• “Fabrication of Three-Dimensional Scaffolds for Heterogeneous Tissue Engineering” by Li-Hsin Han, Shalu Suri, Christine E. Schmidt and Shaochen Chen, 721-725.

Harvard professor and scientific genius George Whitesides believes that nanotechnology will change medicine as we know it. (Smithsonian Magazine)

A technique that combines nanotechnology with adult stem cells appears to destroy atherosclerotic plaque and rejuvenate the arteries, according to a study reported at the American Heart Association’s Basic Cardiovascular Sciences 2010 Scientific Sessions - Technological and Conceptual Advances in Cardiovascular Disease. (PhysOrg)

Nanotechnology involves the ability to control matter at the scale of a nanometer—one billionth of a meter. The world market for products that contain nanomaterials is expected to reach $2.6 trillion by 2015. (The Atlantic)

Wallach is a pioneer in the nascent field of robot ethics and has captured the imaginations of futurists with his theories on artificial moral agents and computational ethics. In fact, he designed the world’s first course on the subject at Yale, and he published a book last year entitled, Moral Machines: Teaching Robots Right from Wrong. (ZDNet)

Nanotechnology’s potential to improve public health will be maximised only with a conducive environment, argues Jayashree Vivekanandan. (SciDev)

The members of the World Commission on the Ethics of Scientific Knowledge and Technology will convene in Extraordinary Session at UNESCO headquarters in Paris (Room XI, Fontenoy Building) on 28-30 June, 2010.

COMEST is an advisory body and forum of reflection composed of 18 independent experts and 11 ex officio representatives of international scientific bodies. The Commission is mandated to formulate ethical principles that could provide decision-makers with criteria than go beyond economics.

The agenda will focus on environmental ethics with an emphasis on ethical principles in relation to climate change, an interim report on which will be adopted at the Session. In addition, questions concerning the ethics of science, nanotechnologies, and converging technologies will be an integral part of the programme.

The session will be open to the public with the exception of the morning of the 28 June and the afternoon of 30 June. Advance registration, which is free of charge, is required for persons wishing to attend the Session.

Contact
John Crowley
COMEST Secretariat
UNESCO
1 rue Miollis 75732 Paris Cedex 15 FRANCE
Tel.: +33 (0)1 45 68 38 28
Fax: +33 (0)1 45 68 57 24
E-mails: comest@unesco.org

Website: http://www.unesco.org/shs/ethics

Synthetic biology is an extension of the spirit of genetic engineering that focuses on the development of biological systems with new, defined characteristics, assembled according to the principles of engineering. Synthetic biology has the potential to be used for a broad range of applications and has solutions in store for major problems of the future, including the sustainable supply of energy and the elimination of environmental damage. As the current debate on the creation of the first synthetic cell in the laboratory shows, synthetic biology also fuels fears that human beings are playing the role of creators and going beyond natural boundaries, with incalculable consequences for the future. (Nanowerk)

Scientific advances and religious beliefs have clashed repeatedly in recent years over issues such as stem cell research and evolution. As nanotechnology becomes a greater part of Americans’ daily lives, researchers have asked whether it will face similar opposition. Experts say that the answer lies in finding solutions to the larger challenges of communicating between science and religion. (Medill News)

Nature (Volume 465, Number 7295, May 13, 2010) is now available by subscription only.

Articles Include:

• “Scientists’ Turn to Win Votes,” 135.
• “Science Subpoenaed,” 135.
• “Advising the Adviser,” 136.
• “Synthetic Biology: Search and Destroy,” 138.
• “Neuroscience: Ageing on the Brain,” 138.
• “Genomics Goes Beyond DNA Sequence” by Alla Katsnelson, 145.
• “Vaccinate Before the Next Pandemic?” by Klaus Stöhr, 161.
• “A Proximity-Based Programmable DNA Nanoscale Assembly Line” by Hongzhou Gu, Jie Chao, Shou-Jun Xiao and Nadrian C. Seeman, 202.

The human body has tremendous capacity to repair itself after disease or injury. Skin will grow over wounds, while cells in our blood supply are constantly being manufactured in our bone marrow. But there is a limit to the body’s ability to replace lost tissue. Cartilage cells are notoriously poor at regrowing after injury, for example. As a result, accidents and illnesses – including cancers – often leave individuals with disfiguring wounds or life-threatening damage to tissue. (Guardian)

Last week in Parliament the Prime Minister was heard calling for more graduates in nanotechnology. At the same time, former University rector Fr Peter Serracino Inglott warned of ethical questions surrounding a “nanotechnology buzz”. (Time of Malta)

Nanotech research into bio-tech applications has been on the upswing the past several years, and now a team of research scientists has announced another new breakthrough. The team succeeded in constructing nano robots from the molecules that compose DNA. These “spider-bots” can crawl, change direction, even create their own tiny assembly line producing nano products. (Helium)

The promises that nanotechnology brings to mankind is so huge that there are some sectors who fear that if its applications are not properly regulated, it can bring harm to mankind instead of the good it is projected to give everyone. As a result, calls for the setting of regulatory procedures in its applications are supported not only by scientists and the industry that benefits from it but also from various groups representing ordinary people. As such, nanotechnology ethics has come to be seen as something as important as nanotechnology itself. In doing so, the scientific community is only reacting to experiences with epoch-setting technologies in the past. Knowing the possible horrors that can affect mankind, nanotechnology ethics are in place for every disciple of the learning to observe. (Nanogloss)

There is fresh buzz in nanomechanics. Scientists at the University of Bonn have succeeded for the first time in making, out of DNA double stands, an interlocked molecule (rotaxane) with freely moveable components. As the researchers wrote in the latest edition of the science journal Nature Nanotechnology (”A double-stranded DNA rotaxane”), this opens up exciting possibilities for nanorobotics and synthetic biology. (Nanowerk)

When the University of Massachusetts Lowell launched its nanotechnology center six years ago, scientists, engineers, and entrepreneurs were dreaming big dreams about small things, like miniature generators to replace batteries and microscopic robots to repair human tissues. (The Boston Globe)

U.S. researchers have developed tiny nanoparticle robots that can travel through a patient’s blood and into tumors where they deliver a therapy that turns off an important cancer gene. (Reuters)

Continuing miniaturization has moved the semiconductor industry well into the nano realm with leading chip manufacturers on their way to CMOS using 22nm process technology. With transistors the size of tens of nanometers, researchers have begun to explore the interface of biology and electronics by integrating nanoelectronic components and living cells. While researchers have already experimented with integrating living cells into semiconductor materials (see “Scientists integrate living brain cells into organic semiconductors”) other research is exploring the opposite way, i.e. integrating nanoelectronics into living cells. (Nanowerk)

Synthetic biology is ushering in a new era of biology that is no longer contained within the walls of laboratories in universities and private companies. This movement is known as do-it-yourself bio (DIYbio) and has been compared with models familiar in the cybertech tech world such as commons-based peer production and open source innovation. (Nanotechnology Now)

Studies in Ethics, Law, and Technology (Volume 3, Issue 3, 2009) is now available by subscription only.

Articles include:

• “Nanotechnologies and Equal Access to Healthcare” by Eduardo Missoni and Guglielmo Foffani.
• “The Impact of Nanomedicine Development on North-South Equity and Equal Opportunities in Healthcare” by Michael G. Tyshenko.
• “Nano Applications, Mega Challenges: The Case of the Health Sector in India” by Jayashree Vivekanandan.
• “The Principle of Justice and Access to Nanomedicine in National Healthcare Systems” by Mette Ebbesen.
• “International Harmonization of Regulation of Nanomedicine” by Gary E. Marchant, Douglas J. Sylvester, Kenneth W. Abbott, and Tara Lynn Danforth.
• “Avoiding the Mistakes of Biotech: How Intellectual Property Can Be Better Managed to Advance Nanotechnology Research” by Richard Gold.”