May 26, 2005 | Read Time: 2 minutes
Technological advances are making it increasingly possible for scientists and engineers to work with precision at a scale of one-billionth of a meter. But nanotechnology, as such advances are known, carries potential risks as well as benefits, and has public-policy implications. Such issues have prompted the Pew Charitable Trusts and the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars to create the new Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies. Pew has promised to provide up to $3-million for the two-year effort.
David Rejeski, a science-policy expert at the Wilson Center who is leading the new project, says roughly 500 products based on nanotechnology are now on the market, including consumer goods such as fabrics that have been modified to repel stains, cosmetics in nanocapsules that allow them to penetrate deeper into the skin, and golf clubs whose heads are made with a modified composite material that is unusually strong and light.
While it’s interesting to talk about things like “wrinkle-free pants,” says Mr. Rejeski, many of the most significant applications of nanotechnology are probably two to seven years away. Then, he says, nanotechnology will lead to diagnostic tests that will allow doctors to detect diseases, such as cancer, much sooner than they can now, and improve the effectiveness of drugs and other treatments. He also expects developments in energy production and environmental cleanup.
“Essentially what you’re talking about is changing the way we make things — and I would say, changing the way we make virtually everything,” says Mr. Rejeski.
When material is manipulated at the nanoscale, he says, substances take on new properties: “Things that were inert all of a sudden become quite reactive. Things that were not conductors of electricity can conduct. Things that were opaque can become transparent. There is an almost magical quality to it.”
Trying to anticipate the policy questions that nanotechnology will present is particularly important because the science touches so many different areas, and, as a result, so many government regulatory agencies, says Mr. Rejeski. The Environmental Protection Agency, the Food and Drug Administration, the Consumer Product Safety Commission, and the United States Department of Agriculture are just a few of the agencies that will have to deal with the consequences of nanotechnology.
“You’ve got this very messy, fast world of innovation, and it’s constantly running up against the slow and deliberative world of policy,” says Mr. Rejeski. “How you put those two together is a real challenge. It’s not enough just to ask the right questions. You have to ask them early enough.”
The Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies is located at the Wilson Center, and is part of Pew’s science-policy program, which also includes the Pew Initiative on Food and Biotechnology, in Washington, and the Genetics and Public Policy Center, in Baltimore.
