Nanotech activity in Texas

Interesting news continues to come out of Texas, one of several states emerging as a center of nanotech-related research and development activity. An article in the Houston Business Journal (30 November 2001) notes the announced move of the Toronto-based firm of C Sixty to Houston, in part lured by $4 million in venture funding for its efforts to develop applications for fullernes (buckyballs). The article also notes other recent events such as the $10.5 million grant from the National Science Foundation to create a Center for Biological and Environmental Nanotechnology at Rice University, and development of Houston-based firms Carbon Nanotechnologies (the venture by Richard Smalley and partners to commercialize carbon nanotubes) and Molecular Electronics Corp., co-founded by molectronics pioneers Jim Tour, Mark Reed, and their partners. The article quotes James Calaway, a C Sixty board member, and president and CEO of Center for Houston's Future: "We're developing a sophisticated group of early-stage nano investors," Calaway says. "Houston is really becoming a hotbed for this area . . . "We're building a nano-cluster here. That's the most important thing. We're building the commercial aspects early enough that we can become a leading nano-cluster in the world."
Perhaps the cooperative agreement between the UT Dallas and Canadian nanotech centers announced in December 2001 was meant as compensation for drawing C Sixty away from Toronto?
Another article in the Ft. Worth Business Journal ("Big Things come in small packages", by G. Bennison, 6 December 2001) makes a few general comments about the developing Texas nanotech boom, but focuses primarily on the Center for Nanostructure Materials and Quantum Device Fabrication (NanoFab) at the University of Texas at Arlington.