Nanotech symposium calls for new tools

from the wonderful-discoveries-promised dept.
An article in Chemical & Engineering News (subscription req'd) reports "The [US] National Institutes of Health is getting ready to jump into the field of nanotechnology…The need for tool development, such as single-molecule detection and nanofabrication methods, was a theme that was sounded repeatedly…" at the NIH Symposium "Nanoscience & Nanotechnology: Shaping Biomedical Research". Harvard chemist George Whitesides called for a separate funding group within NIH: "Tools for nanofabrication are not going to be easily evaluated in the same study section that studies more conventional subjects." Symposium co-chair Lynn Jelinski: "We're saying, 'Here is a small set of scientific priorities, and here is where the investments should go.' With that, I can guarantee you that if you sic really smart people on things, wonderful discoveries will emerge."