Later this month researchers from all over the world will gather in the upmarket Keystone Resort and Conference Centre in Colorado for the third International Conference on Nanoscience + Technology (ICN+T). The organizers expect 600–700 people to attend, which is not large by the standards of many conferences. Indeed, it is also quite small compared with some nano-events, such as the business-oriented NSTI Nanotech 2008 meeting in Boston — which boasted 4,000 attendees and 400 exhibitors in June — and the massive 'nano tech' events that draw huge numbers of the general public to the Tokyo Big Sight every February. However, compared with other nano-conferences, ICN+T is emerging as the foremost conference that covers most areas of research within nanoscience and technology.

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Behr and others are now using nanoparticles to produce anti-mildew paints and anti-graffiti paints. Another company is perfecting a nano-enhanced wall paint that blocks cellphone calls and, longer-term, researchers expect to create a nano-solar paint that can turn your wall and even your house into a giant solar cell.

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The market for emerging nanotechnologies has grown exponentially over the past decade. In 2005, over $32 billion in nanotechnology products were sold and the number is expected to grow to $2.6 trillion by 2014. (1) Nanotechnology will be incorporated in approximately 15% of all goods produced in the manufacturing sector worldwide. The market for nanotechnology, like all other markets, has two forces to consider: the nanotech products supplied by firms and the consumer demand for these cutting edge goods.

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Researchers at the University of Massachusetts Lowell injected rats with neuroblastoma, so they would develop tumors, and then treated them with nanoemulsions containing antioxidants. They found that while the rats fed in the control group continued to develop tumors, the growth rate for those fed antioxidants was actually negative 65 percent, meaning the tumors actually shrank.

“They had about 70 percent total tumor regression,” said Professor Robert Nicolosi, director of UMass Lowell’s Center for Health and Disease Research.

When researchers exposed melanoma cancer cells to a nanoemulsion containing curcumin, an anti-cancer compound found in turmeric, cancer cell proliferation was greatly reduced, Nicolosi said. And when they used a nanoemulsion containing tamoxifen, a drug used to fight breast cancer, they just about eliminated the ability of the cells to proliferate—at least in a cell culture, Nicolosi said. Nanoemulsion delivery systems have been shown to increase the bioavailablity and efficacy of certain drugs. The advantage, particularly for some of the toxic compounds used in fighting cancer, is that less of that compound is needed to achieve the same effect. That means the patient would suffer fewer damaging side effects.

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The drug, called lodamin, was improved in one of the last experiments overseen by Dr. Judah Folkman, a cancer researcher who died in January. Folkman pioneered the idea of angiogenesis therapy -- starving tumors by preventing them from growing blood supplies.

…Efforts to improve it did not work well. Then Benny and colleagues tried nanotechnology, attaching two "pom-pom"-shaped polymers to TNP-470, protecting it from stomach acid.

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…That said, if you're concerned about chemicals, sunscreen containing the naturally occurring minerals titanium dioxide and zinc oxide, which work as physical rather than chemical barriers, are less likely to be absorbed into the skin than many of their counterparts. They also work particularly well against deeper-penetrating, cancer-causing UVA rays (that is, when they're reapplied generously and frequently, and immediately after swimming). The catch? Those minerals, in large enough quantities, might not be great for fish either, and some formulas achieve a sheer, non-chalky effect by breaking the minerals into nano-size particles, which have their own set of safety concerns. "Evidence shows that [zinc and titanium nanoparticles] don't penetrate skin," says Wiles, "but we'd love to see more data."

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Well, come clean he has.  And the revelation: Benny really is silver-free—uncertainty over risks, regulation and public acceptance led to the manufacturer to find a non-nano alternative.

In last Friday’s broadcast of Living On Earth—a U.S. weekly environmental news and information radio program—reporter Jeff Young interviewed Roy Sharda, a partner in Pure Plushy; the Chicago-based company that makes Benny.  According to Sharda, “We have used nano silver in the past there's a lot of speculation as to how much nano silver technology is accepted. Anytime you see controversy you try to sort of avoid it.”

Pure Plushy stopped using nano-silver because there were just too many questions about the material, how people will respond to its use, and how the government might regulate it.

So in the “case of the disappearing nanoparticles,” they really did disappear; to be replaced by a (presumably) more conventional EPA-approved antimicrobial.

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Michael Taylor, of the George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Service, said that his report, Assuring the Safety of Nanomaterials in Food Packaging: The Regulatory Process and Key Issues synthesizes eight months of meetings between government, industry and public interest agencies.

Taylor told FoodProductionDaily.com that the trigger for the study was the fact that the food packaging industry, food companies and consumers all share an interest in ensuring that any safety questions are identified, carefully evaluated and resolved before packaging using nanomaterials is brought onto the market.

Michael Taylor, of the George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Service, said that his report, Assuring the Safety of Nanomaterials in Food Packaging: The Regulatory Process and Key Issues synthesizes eight months of meetings between government, industry and public interest agencies.

Taylor told FoodProductionDaily.com that the trigger for the study was the fact that the food packaging industry, food companies and consumers all share an interest in ensuring that any safety questions are identified, carefully evaluated and resolved before packaging using nanomaterials is brought onto the market.

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But the science of the small (as nanotechnology often is described) is throwing up vast, new challenges for regulators.

Everyone from health and environmental campaigners to business leaders agrees that reconciling the pros and cons of nanotechnology is going to be hard work, and that a full understanding of the properties of these materials could take years to establish.

Where they disagree is what to do now.

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The food-packaging industry, food companies and consumers all share an interest in ensuring that any possible safety questions are identified and are carefully evaluated and resolved before marketing packaging materials that contain ENMs, according to the report authored by former Food and Drug Administration (FDA) policy official Michael R. Taylor.

The PEN-GMA report, Assuring the Safety of Nanomaterials in Food Packaging: The Regulatory Process and Key Issues, was a result of an effort by experts from government, industry and the public interest community to examine the path of a number of hypothetical nanotechnology food packaging applications through the current regulatory system. The regulatory system for food packaging is scientifically rigorous and extraordinarily complex, both legally and scientifically. This first-of-its-kind analysis provides a better understanding of the potential regulatory issues on the horizon for nanotechnology-enabled packaging - an advantage for industry, consumers and regulatory agencies such as FDA and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

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Several manufacturers are incorporating nano-sized particles of silver into socks to kill bacteria that cause odor. But does the silver stay in the socks? And what happens to it if it washes out? Arizona State University's Troy Benn tested a variety of socks containing nanosilver. He wrote in the journal Environmental Science and Technology that some socks released nearly all of their nanosilver within the first four washings.

Surprisingly, says Benn, "Others that contained a lot of silver in the sock didn't release any silver that was detectable." He says there must be some differences in the manufacturing process. "We assume there is a way to contain the silver within sock because we did see a large difference between different manufacturers of the sock material."

For someone with diabetes or a soldier in the field, says Benn, a sock that kills microbes and prevents infection could be critical, but for other people, "The question is whether the benefits really outweigh the potential environmental cost."

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Before that happens, here's where it'll turn up first. Medicine and health. You name it – molecular analysis of samples, micro-surgery, drug production, monitoring implants, all are huge markets waiting for the increase in efficiencies, better procedures and plain old cost savings that'll happen when we better engineer tiny things that interact with our bodies. For example: tiny robots small enough to fit in a particular size of syringe that can be powered, controlled and monitored from outside, and which do real surgery on retinas. Why that size of syringe? That's the largest that can inject into the eye without requiring sutures.

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But the applications of nanotechnology could also be a boon for developing new ways to cut waste, clean up pollution and improve the energy efficiency of entire industries.

… Ensuring public acceptance of nanotechnologies could be particularly important in Europe, which has pledged to keep its economy humming while finding ways of reducing planet-warming emissions by as much as 30 percent by 2020. And even as scientists and environmentalists warn of the dangers of nanotechnology, authorities like the European Commission are pledging support for a wide range of projects.

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