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It's the small things in life that matter most !
June 14, 2001Research into Nanotechnology has received a boost of £18 M to set up new research collaborations in this area.
The money is split between two consortia one in bionanotechnlogy led by Oxford University, with the Universities of Glasgow and York, and the National Institute for Medical Research. This collaboration also involves links with the Universities of Cambridge, Nottingham and Southampton.
The other is in nanotechnology and is led by Cambridge University, with University College London and the University of Bristol.
These Interdiscliplinary Research Collaborations are funded by three of the Governments' Science Research Councils (EPSRC and BBSRC based in Swindon, and MRC based in London) and the Ministry of Defence.
The essence of this research is to make and use structures at the nanometre (nm) scale (1 nm = a billionth of a metre, that is, one ten thousandth of the diameter of a human hair). It's a multidisciplinary field involving materials scientists, chemists, physicists, biochemists, molecular biologists, engineers and applied mathematicians.
The enormous advances made during the last twenty years mean that the tools to make and measure minute objects on the molecular scale have become available. We will now begin to see extraordinary advances in manufacturing using these tools: computers will shrink, medical diagnosis and treatment will be almost instantaneous and non-invasive, energy wastage will be dramatically reduced and our environment will become increasingly clean. The UK must maintain a leading role in defining this new technology, which is why the setting up of these collaborations is so significant.
The Cambridge University led Consortium is directed by Professor Mark Welland, Head of the Nanoscale Science Laboratory in the Department of Engineering.
" Nanotechnlogy is unique in that it brings together all the scientific and engineering disciplines,"said Professor Welland. "This will inevitably lead to very significant scientific breakthroughs that in turn will fuel the diverse economies that will be nanotechnology based in the future. The investment by Government funding agencies to establish new collaborations in nanotechnology will ensure that the UK plays a leading role in both scientific and commercial arenas."
The Oxford University led Consortium in Bionanotechnology is directed by Professor John Ryan, Head of Condensed Matter Physics and Head of the Physics Department.
"Biological materials, such as enzymes and proteins, have many remarkable advantages;" said Professor Ryan, "they undergo highly controlled assembly on an atom by atom basis, which makes them idea for applications in nanotechnology. Evolution in the natural world has produced an astonishing variety of biomolecular nano-devices including molecular motors and membrane proteins such as ion channels, hormone receptors and photoreceptors. Our goal is to understand the structure and function of these biological devices and use nature's solutions in advancing science and engineering."
Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC)
Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC)
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