Abstract:
Nanotechnology has been described as many things: the next industrial revolution, the great leveler, an emerging technology, even technology of the Singularity. Yet, I am going to liken the nanotechnology revolution to the American Wild West. Let me explain why a 19th century metaphor is apt and why its actually a good thing for nanotechnology's image, its regulation, or for its progress as we move forward in the 21st century to be likened to the era of gunslingers and cowboys.

April 25th, 2009

The Wild West of Nanotechnology

Nanotechnology has been described as many things: the next industrial revolution, the great leveler, an emerging technology, even technology of the Singularity. Yet, I am going to liken the nanotechnology revolution to the American Wild West. Let me explain why a 19th century metaphor is apt and why its actually a good thing for nanotechnology's image, its regulation, or for its progress as we move forward in the 21st century to be likened to the era of gunslingers and cowboys.

Applications for nanotechnology in stem cell research, to pick just a single area are increasing almost weekly. There is not a week that goes by that one cannot read in the news of some new technique developed for nanotechnology and stem cell research. In one of the best articles that I have seen to date on stem cell research and nanotechnology, now almost a year old, Xie already had identified for work in stem cell research ALONE more than 35 different nanotechnological applications for everything from stem cell transfection to stem cell tissue engineering to cell tracking and imaging. And this is just for stem cell research http://www.nanotech-now.com/columns/?article=161 .

Multiply this for nanotechnology methods for nanosurgery for every body part, then for drug delivery, then for diagnostics. You get the sense for how rapidly expanding the field of nanomedicine is growing. Multiply that times the amount of money being invested by NNI and venture capitalists and other private investment and you begin to grasp the grandiosity of nanomedicine as an endeavor. Then think about nanotechnology broadly. You begin to get the picture. Effectively it is like a group of self-replicating nanobots themselves. It is potentially a limitless field with limitless applications.

But this is precisely nanomedicine, as an interdisciplinary field's, Achilles heel and greatest asset. With so many potential applications and directions in which to grow, it is a field that has the potential to grow exponentially or to fold in on itself, if it is not careful. There is no single governmental agency given dominion to regulate nanotechnology and oversee its progress. It has no watchdog group to reign in rogue scientists, misfits or charlatans. There is no ethics organization, code of ethics for nanoscientists—which can hardly be a monolithic group when it is made up of material scientists, engineers, chemists, biologists, physists and more.

http://www.nanotech-now.com/columns/?article=297