Author: Richard Jones

Another ??200 million for nanotechnology in the UK

The UK government announced yesterday ??200 million (US$380 million) of funding for nanotechnology over the next three years. The announcement came rather buried in yesterday’s press release accompanying the details of the breakdown of the science allocations from the 2004 – 2008 Comprehensive Spending Review.

There are a couple of caveats to be born in mind when interpreting this figure. Firstly, as the precise wording is “Raising total DTI investment in nanotechnology research to ??200 million” we should probably assume that the ??200m isn’t in addition to the ??90m or so already announced – the new money is thus in the region of ??110m. Secondly, this is only the spend on nanotechnology directly controlled by the Department of Trade and Industry. Most academic nanoscience is still supported by the research councils, particularly EPSRC (whose roughly ??0.5 billion annual budget sees healthy rises over the next few years, though these probably won’t be translated into a lot of new science).

I can’t say I look at this story without mixed feelings. It isn’t clear to me that the DTI has got its act together about its nanotechnology program; the money spent so far seems to be on very short term, rather niche, applications. The definition they give in the press release doesn’t inspire confidence that they have much of a long term vision: “Nanotechnology is the science of minute particles. Nanotechnology manipulates and controls these particles to create structures with unique properties, and promises advances in manufacturing, medicine and computing. Potential applications include medical dressing that kill off microbes, stain-free fabrics that repel liquids and self-cleaning windows.”

Directly reading DNA

As the success of the Human Genome Project has made clear, DNA stores information at very high density – 15 atoms per bit of stored information. But, while biology has evolved some very sophisticated and compact ways of reading that information, we’re stuck with some clunky and expensive methods of sequencing DNA. Of course, driven by the Human Genome Project, the techniques have improved hugely, but it still costs about ten million dollars to sequence a mammal-sized genome (according to this recent press release from the National Institutes of Health). This needs to get much cheaper, not only to unlock the potential of personalised genomic medicine, but also if we are going to use DNA or analogous molecules as stores of information for more general purposes. One thousand dollars a genome is a sum that is often mentioned as a target.

Clearly, it would be great if we could simply manipulate a single DNA molecule and directly read out its sequence. One of the most promising approaches to doing this envisages threading the molecule through a nanoscale hole and measuring some property which changes according to which base is blocking the pore. A recent experiment shows that it is possible, in principle, to do this. The experiment is reported by Ashkenasy, Sanchez-Quesada, and M. Reza Ghadiri, from Scripps, and Bayley from Oxford, in a recent edition of Angewandte Chemie (Angew Chemie Int Ed 44 p1401 (2005)) – the full paper can be downloaded as a PDF here. In this case the pore is formed by a natural pore forming protein in a lipid membrane, and what is measured is the ion current across the membrane.

This approach isn’t new; it originated with David Deamer at Santa Cruz and Dan Branton at Harvard (Branton’s website in particular is an excellent resource). A number of groups around the world are trying to do something similar; there are various variations possible, such as using an artificially engineered nanopore instead of a membrane protein, and using a different probe than the ion current. It feels to me like this ought to work, and this latest demonstration is an important step along the path.

Duckboy in Nanoland

It’s worth taking a look at the website that goes with the new exhibition on nanotechnology at the Science Museum in London – Nanotechnology: small science, big deal – it’s an interesting, though necessarily brief and superficial, trip through the subject, with a good overview of the incremental end of the technology.

The highlight has to be the splendid video game, Duckboy in Nanoland, which has clearly already diverted the finest minds in the nanobusiness world for far too long. I too was captivated by its cheesily retro graphics. I’m relieved, though, that the introduction to the first game “Strange attractions” has been changed. In the early version of the game, which I road-tested on my postdocs, you were asked to “steer duckboy through a sticky patch in the tunnel of love“. For some reason they all thought this was terribly funny. If only for suggesting this change, I think I deserve my name on the acknowledgements list.

It isn’t science that drives the nanotechnology news agenda

The event on nanotechnology at the Dana Centre in London last night was interesting in that it focused, not on what scientists or technologists think that nanotechnology is or will be, but on the way the subject is portrayed in popular culture and the media. The conclusions are rather sobering for any scientists who still believe that it’s their laboratory work that sparks public interest in nanotechnology.

Clare Wilkinson, working at the University of Plymouth, talked about her comprehensive study of treatment of nanotechnology in British national newspapers between 2003 and 2004. What’s striking about her results is how little of the media coverage was generated by science correspondents (only 13%), and how small was the proportion of stories that were sparked by a research report or journal article (only 15%). And what’s not at all surprising to anyone who’s been following press coverage of nanotechnology is the way stock images and metaphors are used, again and again, to place stories in context.

What are the favourite stock images? Nanosubmarines and nanobots, of course, and to see where that’s come from one only has to look at the treatment of nanotechnology in the cinema. David Kirby, another of last night’s speakers, traced the history of nanotechnology in the movies from the inevitable Fantastic Voyage, through Star Trek: The Next Generation, to the recent crop of Virtuosity, Minority Report, The Hulk and Agent Cody Banks. He singled out Spiderman 2 (2004) as the first explicit invocation of something like the Grey Goo nightmare, pointing the way, perhaps, to the nano-dystopia of Prey. That film we’re still waiting for; but perhaps James Cameron’s remake of Fantastic Voyage will be even more significant. David’s research, based at the University of Manchester, has involved extensive interviews with the scientific consultants for Hollywood studios, and he reports that virtually every script that’s now being considered that has any kind of technological component is invoking nanotechnology in one form or another.

It’s clear that nanotechnology now has a status akin to nuclear energy in the fifties; an unseen power that serves as a universal plot device, facilitating miracles, on the one hand, and breeding monsters on the other.

Nanotechnology and science fiction: debate and live webcast

A debate on the relationship between science fiction, nanotechnology and reality is being held at the Dana centre, at the Science Museum in London this evening, between 7 and 8.30 pm. I’m one of the speakers. There are details here, including a link for the live webcast.

“Nanotechnology has recently stared in films such as Spiderman 2, Hulk and Minority Report. But how realistic is the science behind these the sci-fi fantasies? Many of the predicted applications of nanotechnology, from tiny medical ‘robots’ in the bloodstream to self-replicating nanobots turning the world into ‘gray goo’, sound like they belong to the realms of science fiction. How have such images been used by the media to portray the realities of nanotechnology? If these images are not realistic, what are the potential risks and benefits of future developments in nanotechnology? What are its limitations?”

Nanotechnology uncertainties and (missed) opportunities: the UK government responds

The UK government’s official written response to the Royal Society nanotechnology report can be found in this 26 page PDF document. As I wrote in this report from the launch event, the response is a missed opportunity to put the UK in the lead in establishing a sensible regulatory framework for the development of nanotechnology in a way that maintains public confidence. This has caused some dismay, not just from anti-nanotechnology activists, but also from pro-business voices. It’s telling that the only coverage of the story in the national press yesterday was in the Financial Times, which had both a news item and an editorial . The FT points out that in potentially controversial technology areas, good regulation can be a source of competitive advantage, and it fears that this response could signal a loss of momentum, with damaging consequences for the nascent nanotechnology industry.

Of course, the report expresses many perfectly fine sentiments about the need to coordinate research, to engage with the public and to develop an appropriate regulatory framework. But, in response to the rather specific recommendations of the Royal Society report, there’s very little in the way of actual action. There are four main categories of issues to be addressed:

  • Research into the potential toxicity of nanoparticles
    The headline here is the dismissal of the recommendation of the Royal Society to fund a dedicated research centre for the study of potential nanoparticle toxicity and the behaviour of nanoparticles in the environment. Instead, research will be commissioned by a Research Coordination Group comprising representatives from research councils and government departments. But does this group have the authority to tell the Research Councils, for example, to set aside money for this purpose? That is not specified, and it seems unlikely.
  • Regulation
    The government announced a study by DEFRA on environmental regulations, to report by end 2005. As far as Health and Safety legislation is concerned, the response reports that the Health and Safety Executive believe that there are currently no gaps in regulations. Chemicals will carry on being regulated under the Notification of New Substances regulations, which won’t be changed in the way the report recommended, to make nanoparticles be considered as new substances. it looks like the Government can’t see the point of doing anything while the replacement for these regulations, the Europe-wide Registration, Evaluation Authorisation of Chemicals, are being negotiated. To fend off accusations of inactivity on this front, the government has announced a review of the advisory committee structure, but anticipates that responsibility for advice on health and environmental risk will remain diffused over a total of 9 different advisory committees . As regards the issue of specifying the inclusion of nanoparticles in cosmetics, the government will look into the matter (no mechanism for this or date for reporting is specified.)
  • Social and ethical issues
    The Royal Society’s recommendation for an interdisciplinary research program on social and ethical issues is not endorsed; instead there is simply a lukewarm general commitment to “delivering the science and society agenda”. It is clear that the Government is content that this be left to the research councils to sort out, but there’s a strong steer that scientists must be involved in any such research programme, and that the research should be geared to providing practical guidance on policy making and regulation.
  • Public dialogue
    There’s general support for the importance of public dialogue, and a rather unspecific commitment to find funds and resources for it. The report cites one specific example – the Small Talk project. The scheme under which this was funded (COPUS – the committee for public understanding of science) has now been replace by another scheme, Sciencewise, which has had a recent call for proposals singling out nanotechnology for special attention. Not mentioned in the response is the ominous fact that government funding under this scheme is conditional on matched funding being raised from the non-government sources. This is unfortunate, as it could easily compromise the perceived independence of this kind of project.

    • Connoisseurs of committees will enjoy this report; in addition to the Research Coordination Group, we’ve also got the Nanotechnology Issues Dialogue Group, which will be reported to by the former and will report to and brief the two year and five year independent reviews, to be carried out by the Council for Science and Technology. This is a classical committee of the great and good (in this case, university vice-chancellors and other senior academics, industrialists and financiers), which, in its quarterly meetings has to provide advice to the Prime Minister on everything to do with science and technology, including both research and education, in government, academia and industry. Fitting in a complete independent review on nanotechnology as well shouldn’t prove too difficult. And of course, there’s the committee to review the advisory committee structure.

    Soft Machines in agreement with the ETC group shock…

    Soft Machines is making a guest appearance on Howard Lovy’s Nanobot, with my impressions of the event at the Science Museum at which the Science Minister, Lord Sainsbury, announced the government response to the Royal Society report on nanotechnology. Howard had hoped that by juxtaposing my report with the report of the ETC group’s Jim Thomas, he’d have an interesting point-counterpoint. Remarkably, Jim and I seem to be rather more in agreement than usual.

    I’ll give a more detailed analysis of the government’s written response here later.

    UK Government announces its response to the Royal Society report

    The Science Minister, Lord Sainsbury, today announced the government’s response to the Royal Society study on nanotechnology, Nanoscience and nanotechnologies: opportunities and uncertainties.

    The government’s press release is here: LORD SAINSBURY OUTLINES GOVERNMENT PLANS FOR THE SAFE AND ETHICAL DEVELOPMENT OF NANOTECHNOLOGIES.

    The Royal Society itself seems to be disappointed by the response : its own press release is here: Government commits to regulating nanotechnologies but will it deliver?

    An early news report from the BBC reports disappointment also from environmental groups (and, indeed, me).

    I was at the launch event in person; a full report on the event as well as a detailed analysis of the response will follow.

    Nanotechnology moves up the UK news agenda again

    I arrived at my office after my afternoon lecture today to find a note saying a film crew was arriving in 30 minutes; sure enough my colleague, Tony Ryan, and I spent a couple of hours filming interviews amid the bubbling flasks of the chemistry department talking about what nanotechnology is, is not, and might become. This will be boiled down to about a minute and a half on Yorkshire Television’s early evening news magazine. Such is the lot of a would-be science populariser.

    The reason for this timing is a bit of pre-positioning that’s going on by the media in the UK at the moment. We’re expecting some significant nanotechnology related news on Friday, so people are getting their stories ready.

    Quotations for the week

    This week’s quotation on Soft Machines comes from that pioneer of British empiricism, Sir Francis Bacon:

    It cannot be that axioms established by argumentation can suffice for the discovery of new works, since the subtlety of nature is greater many times than the subtlety of argument.

    I write this with Philip Moriarty in mind, since he’s going to be taking a break from participating in debates on Soft Machines and elsewhere. I would like to record my gratitude to Philip, because he’s made a tremendous contribution to this blog in the last couple of months. I think he’s made a really important contribution to the debate, not least by forcibly reminding us how subtle and complex surface physics can be. As another oft-quoted saying goes (usually attributed to Wolfgang Pauli):

    God made solids, but surfaces were the work of the devil.