Nanotechnology Initiative's Origins

The NNI finds its origins in grassroots efforts by program managers at agencies like the National Science Foundation in the mid-1990s. Tom Kalil, former deputy assistant to President President Clinton for technology and economic policy and the administration's NNI point person, was one of the initiative's most influential advocates.

"Long term, nanotech can be as significant as the steam engine, the transistor and the Internet," says Kalil. "There is a critical role for government in areas of science and technology that are risky, long term and initially difficult to justify to shareholders."

Kalil said White House staff thought a nanotechnology initiative was a good idea for a number of reasons, including balancing the growing funding disparity between life sciences and physical sciences, training the next generation of U.S. scientists and taking an international lead in a transformative technology.

In January 2001 President Clinton introduced the NNI in a speech on technology at Caltech (the same place where Richard Feynman planted the seeds for nanotech 41 years earlier) and then mentioned it in his State of the Union address. But this was a nonpartisan venture: One of the initiative's backers was Newt Gingrich, who was Republican speaker of the House of Representatives at the time. Gingrich is now co-chairman of the NanoBusiness Alliance, which I co-founded, and he is an avid proponent for increased funding of basic scientific research.

From his car phone in D.C., Gingrich told me, "Those countries that master the process of nanoscale manufacturing and engineering will have a huge job boom over the next 20 years, just like aviation and computing companies in the last 40 years, and just as railroad, steam engine and textile companies were decisive in the 19th century. Nanoscale science will give us not dozens, not scores, not hundreds, but thousands of new capabilities in biology, physics, chemistry and computing."

What has already transpired since Clinton's Caltech speech is astounding. The NNI will be the most significant U.S. government-funded science project since the Space Program. Federal nanotechnology research funding has surged nearly sixfold in the past six years, starting from $116 million in 1997. My good friend Mark Modzelewski, co-founder and director of the NanoBusiness Alliance, says that money is not the only reason the NNI is a success.

"Before the NNI was started, corporate CEOs were not talking about nanotech," he said. "The NNI woke everyone up. It's incredible that this once-obscure science is now the buzzword amongst the leaders of the free world."

Perhaps the most fitting blueprint for nanotechnology comes courtesy of the most recent government-funded boom: the Human Genome Project. The Department of Energy first started funding genome research in 1986, and the National Institutes of Health joined it to officially launch the Human Genome Project in 1990. The goal was to find the estimated 100,000 or more human genes (scientists later learned humans only have 30,000 to 35,000 genes) and determine the sequence of the 3 billion units of DNA. Estimated cost: $3 billion over 15 years. Understanding how human genes work is expected to lead to breakthroughs in treating and preventing disease.

With private companies helping accelerate progress, in 2001 the Human Genome Project announced it would accomplish its objectives two years early. Administrators have already published a working draft and estimate the sequence will be 100% complete by next April. Expenditures for the Human Genome Project as of 2002 total $3.2 billion, and now the ball is really rolling.

http://www.forbes.com/2002/10/10/1010soapbox.html