Scientists, students see nanobiotechnology advances at NBTC meeting

By Roger Segelken

Less than two years after its founding, participants in the Cornell-based Nanobiotechnology Center (NBTC) reported significant progress in efforts to probe biology in the "nano" scale and make devices that interface with living systems. Some nanobotechnologists speaking at a June 22 meeting at the university's Weill Cornell Medical College in New York City also sought to distinguish realistic potential from science-fiction hype in a field whose mantra is smaller, faster and more of everything.

At Weill Cornell Medical College June 22, Nanobiotechnology Center Education Coordinator Anna Waldron, left, and graduate student Christine Campagnolo, center, lead NBTC meeting participants through an educational exercise: making photolithography "s'mores." Cornell News Service

Meeting participants included faculty researchers, postdoctoral associates and graduate students working in the multi-institutional center, which began in 1999 with funding from the National Science Foundation. Additional funding to NBTC comes from the New York State Technology and Advanced Research (NYSTAR) program, and the meeting last week was supported, in part, by the Alliance for Nanomedical Technologies and the Tri-Institutional Research Program, comprising Cornell and the Weill Cornell Medical College, Rockefeller University and Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center.

Nanobiotechnology, as Carl Batt, NBTC co-director and professor of food science, deals with engineered materials and living cells just a few nanometers in size. A DNA strand is about two nanometers wide. Most nanobiotech work involves silicon because that well-characterized material is the standard of the integrated circuit industry, Batt noted, "but the challenge is to go into new types of materials," such as polymers, he said.

Batt reported notable advances in the infrastructure fundamentals of futuristic nanobiotech devices -- in areas such as microfluidics to transport life-sustaining substances and ATPase molecular motors to power nano devices -- but cautioned that the future remains just beyond grasp. So far there are no technologically feasible devices to correct genetic mutations, to "cut and paste and interface with DNA at the 2-nanometer scale," he said. The much-anticipated (or feared) nanorobots are still in the realm of science fiction, according to Batt.

Another nanobiotechnologist hoping to separate hype from reality, Harold Craighead, the NBTC founding director and incoming interim dean of Cornell's College of Engineering, was equally interested in the future of students in the multidisciplinary field. Things like the "lab on a chip" to develop and test new drugs might come from today's nanobiotechnology students, Craighead predicted. One of his goals as engineering dean will be to educate a new generation of students who are grounded in one discipline but capable of communicating across others, Craighead said, adding: "It's an exciting time. Things are evolving as we speak."

The meeting saw the first announcement of Barbara Baird, professor of chemistry and chemical biology, as Craighead's replacement at NBTC (see story).

Other presentations were made by Melissa Hines, associate professor of chemistry and chemical biology at Cornell, on creating nanostructured silicon surfaces; James Turner, professor of biomedical sciences at the Wadsworth Center, on the interface of cell biology and nanotechnology; Michael Sheetz, professor in Columbia University's biology department, on nanometer machines from biological systems; Robert Austin, professor of physics at Princeton, on designing a "biology lab on a chip"; and Thomas Kurz, co-founder of Advion BioSciences Inc., on microfluidic devices for mass spectrometry and bioanalytical separations.

Kurz noted that his Ithaca-based company, which employs 75 and serves 13 of the world's 15 largest pharmaceutical companies, had received technological assistance from the Cornell Nanofabrication Facility and uses a material invented in Cornell's Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology.

Proving that the route to understanding runs through the stomach, Anna Waldron, NBTC education coordinator, illustrated one of the center's functions -- education outreach to public schools -- when she guided meeting participants through a flavorful laboratory exercise -- photolithographic s'mores. Graham crackers, marshmallows, a chocolate bar and a heat gun represented parts of a nanotechnology manufacturing process. The demonstration was developed by Cornell graduate student Christine Campognolo for school children, but it also left a lasting -- if sticky -- impression on the scientists.