POLICY NEWS

NIH’s $144 million anticancer alliance

The National Science Foundation (NSF) has awardeda five-year, $15 million grant to create the firstNational Center for Learning and Teaching (NCLT) inNanoscale Science and Engineering. Robert P. H.Chang at Northwestern University will lead thecenter in partnership with Purdue, Argonne NationalLaboratory, and the Universities of Michigan andIllinois at Chicago and Urbana-Champaign. The center will train educators to introducenanoscience and engineering into school andundergraduate programs. It create modules forgrades 7-12, initially focused on materials scienceand engineering. “Our modules will emphasize therole of nanoscale properties and structure indetermining the behavior of the substances thatdrive our technological society,” explains Chang.Expanded versions of the modules will be targetedat community colleges and undergraduateinstitutions and will eventually form the core of asemester-long nanotechnology course. The coursematerials will be field-tested and evaluated at sitesacross the US. “We hope to reach at least one

million students," says Chang. “The NCLT will createa better pipeline for young students interested innanotechnology,” adds NSF advisor Mihail Roco. Mark Telford

Building a nano workforce from the bottom up

As one of the first steps in its CancerNanotechnology Plan, the US NationalInstitutes of Health’s (NIH) National CancerInstitute (NCI) has launched the Alliance forNanotechnology in Cancer, a $144.3 million,five-year initiative to bring togetherresearchers, clinicians, and public and privateorganizations to apply nanotechnology to thedetection, diagnosis, treatment, and preventionof cancer.Four major programs will create: • Centers of Cancer Nanotechnology

Excellence, each affiliated with an NCIComprehensive Cancer Center, university,or research center, to integratenanotechnology into cancer research andbridge gaps between materials discoveryand preclinical testing;

• Multidisciplinary research teams frombasic science and clinical backgrounds tooptimize the translation of nanotechnologyinto clinical oncology;

• Nanotech platforms in six key areas –molecular imaging and early detection, in vivo imaging, reporters of efficacy,multifunctional therapeutics, preventionand control, and research enablers;

• The Nanotechnology CharacterizationLaboratory to perform and standardizepreclinical nanomaterials characterization.This national resource will help accelerateregulatory review and the translation ofnanomaterials into the clinical realm.

The NCI is partnering with the NationalInstitute of Standards and Technology oncharacterization and standardization and aimsto expand collaboration with the US Food andDrug Administration in the future. * The NIH has awarded Emory University andthe Georgia Institute of Technology twocollaborative research grants: • A five-year, $7.1 million NCI grant to

found a Bioengineering ResearchPartnership to develop tools for linkingmolecular signatures to cancer behaviorand clinical outcome, including a database,new nanoparticles for molecular profilingof cancer, and microscopes and software;

• A four-year, $2.7 million exploratorycenter grant from the National Instituteof General Medical Sciences to developbioconjugated quantum dots to target andimage single-molecule processes in cells.

Mark Telford

EDUCATION

FUNDING

As part of the Framework 6

Programme, the European Union has

approved a four-year, �26 million

project that aims to transform

macroscale medical devices into

nanotools for regenerative medicine.

The program, cellPROM (cell

programming by nanoscale devices),

will bring together 27 academic and

industrial researchers from 12

European countries, coordinated by the

Fraunhofer Institute for Biomedical

Engineering. Partners include France’s

Institut Pasteur, the École

Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne in

Switzerland, Sweden’s Royal Institute

of Technology, and universities in

Spain, Portugal, Austria, Italy,

Slovenia, Lithuania, and Israel, as well

as industrial partners.

* The UK Government’s Department of

Trade and Industry has allocated the

first grants from its �128 million

Micro and Nanotechnology

Manufacturing Initiative. The allocation

of over �21 million will cover up to

50% of 25 projects, which include

both applied research and new

facilities. Projects range in scope from

the development of new fuel cell

materials to medical devices and

diagnostics to production techniques

for carbon nanotubes and nanowires.

* Imperial College London and US-

based company Advance Nanotech

have announced a collaboration to

promote bionanotechnology. Advance

Nanotech is providing �4.85 million to

Imperial’s Institute of Biomedical

Engineering, which aims to develop

next generation medical technologies.

The next stage of the collaboration will

see Advance Nanotech partner the

Institute of Biomedical Engineering and

other research organizations in the

USA and Singapore in a series of

collaborative projects.Mark Telford

Cell-ing nano FUNDING

December 200418

Nanotech is child's play. Singapore's Balestier Hill may be the first

primary school to integrate nanotech into its syllabus. Thanks to

$25,000 in government grants, the school’s ‘nano’ lab has eight

x1600 electron microscopes, as well as styrofoam balls and Lego

for making models of atomic structures. (Courtesy of Irene Ho.)