NanoBusiness Alliance starts safety task force

The NanoBusiness Alliance has formed a task force to explore health and environmental issues related to nanotechnology and ways to educate the public and industry about those matters.

The Health and Environmental Issues Task Force includes researchers and nanotechnology business leaders including venture capitalists and will meet soon to begin its work, said Mark Modzelewski, executive director of the alliance, which is based in New York. In the short term, the group will assemble research and other nanotechnology information and provide that data on its Web site. One aim, for instance, is to help companies avoid pitfalls when they scale up (or down, as it were) for nanotechnology manufacturing.

In the long term, the task force will propose nanotechnology standards and work with organizations in other countries with similar efforts under way, he said. The alliance is also likely to recommend specific legislation to the U.S. Congress if it identifies specific risks to the environment or health issues related to the nascent nanotechnology industry.

"As an industry, we want to look sooner rather than later at any potential problems," Modzelewski said. Like nanotechnology itself, many of the problems outlined thus far are theoretical. Some are even the stuff of science fiction, which has taken up the mantle of nanotechnology with verve. Nanotechnology enthusiasts believe it will ultimately lead to profound changes across various industries including IT, medicine, life sciences, energy, agriculture, transportation and construction.

In its broadest sense, nanotechnology is the ability to measure, predict, make -- or manipulate -- at the scale of atoms and molecules. But the fledgling ability to manipulate atoms and molecules, which are the very substance of all life, disturbs some opponents who believe it confers god-like power to scientists.

One popular science fiction notion is that of "gray goo," where self-replicating robots created with nanotechnology take over after a mutation goes horribly wrong causing environmental catastrophe or even human extinction. Other concerns are more down to earth with questions raised about nanotechnology being used for evil measure to create killer viruses or weapons of mass destruction.

Although some detractors provide extremist scenarios and viewpoints meant to scare the unknowing public, Modzelewski noted there are legitimate concerns and issues because there is plenty that scientists and companies working in nanotechnology don't yet know. A lot more research needs to be done to measure what effects there might be from making quantities of new materials that don't naturally occur at the level of atoms and molecules.

"We really do need to think about what a work place looks like dealing with materials this small and what are the afterlife effect breaking down in landfills," Modzelewski said.

The task force expects to join forces with the Rice University Center for Biological and Environmental Nanotechnology, which is already conducting the kind of academic research that is needed for the industry, he said.

The alliance hopes to have a Web-based library of studies and educational materials up in late September, with work toward establishing industry standards and best practices continuing in the months to come, Modzelewski said. The alliance is an industry group co-founded by Modzelewski in October 2001. Its Web site is at http://www.nanobusiness.org/.