At this year’s AIBN Annual Research Symposium, Professor Ian Chubb spoke about the importance of nanotechnology and bioengineering. He also discussed what the Government is doing to support research into this field and the role this plays in creating a healthier and more prosperous society.

Click here to download the speech (pdf)

“Peter Gray, staff from the Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology, thank you for asking me here to speak to you today.

I won’t talk a lot about science today, partly because it is not my place to come here to talk to you about your science – even though I once stated that since I could read English, and that I had actually used that ability, I could make a comment about where a particular science was heading. And I meant it; if you take the time and go to the trouble to read a fair amount of what is written by scientists, or summary statements by scientific academies or scientific and professional associations, you can draw inferences even if you are not a deep expert in a particular field.

But today I will speak to you primarily about something different: a new frontier in the astonishing world that nanotechnology and biotechnology are opening up – in medicine, new-age materials and in food.

The new frontier lies in the world of the everyday – people from all walks of life who revel in the wonders of science, find it baffling or, depending on their preconceptions, mind-numbingly dull or a cause for alarm.

Representatives of the AIBN and their associates at this symposium – scientists in research organisations worldwide for that matter – have been living and breathing bioengineering and nanotechnology for years. You understand it, and it gives you a thirst for more.

But spare a thought for those outside the scientific realm – our broader Australian community.

This is why I use the term frontier. For those Australians not involved in the day-to-day work of researchers at places like AIBN, asking them to accept nanotechnology and biotechnology is a huge leap into the unknown – a new and potentially frightening frontier.

Science is a great story but if we allow misunderstanding to flourish, if we don’t challenge misinformation when we see it or hear it, the community labours under incorrect assumptions. And unfortunately as is often the case with the unknown, inadequate explanation spawns mistrust.

This is why we, and our peers, must be at pains to ensure that all Australians know that real scientific endeavour is founded on the premise of good, ethically-based research to achieve the common good and is designed to lead to a healthier, wealthier and smarter society.

Science is presently represented differently: captured by one in the neat little expression: they would say that wouldn’t they; or by another who reminds us that government funds the research of scientists so presumably, they would say that wouldn’t they. Gross maybe, unexplained certainly, but an attempt to instill doubt in the public’s mind: Research, they hint, is less about the disinterested pursuit of truth than it is about cosying up to the agency that funds your business class travel.

Let us be clear: the public interest is important to what we do; and important in what we do. And it is that interest that captures the need for ethically conducted research that is indeed based on the disinterested pursuit of knowledge.

But we have to get the message out – not every now and then but always. We need to provide the public with the opportunity to understand the issues: the message scientists and researchers are attempting to get across – to explain who, how, what, where, when and why. We need to let them know that seeing two serious scientists debating a point on TV is not by definition a rift but more likely a public display of the scientific process at work – ideas are contestable, views are challenged and changed when better evidence is brought forward. And they are not changed if it is not.

The public has to trust science. But that trust should not be taken as a given; and winning it, earning it, should not be taken as an easy ride.

And, in particular, we need to work at it now; as we push science into new areas some of which at least will have serious effects on people’s lives, they will want reassurance that it can be trusted; that we can be trusted.

Nobody would accept that a new pharmaceutical could be put on the market untested in humans because scientists somewhere say it was designed to have only one targeted effect. They expect, even require, that it pass through a process that gives them confidence that side effects are restricted to a few, are small in number and controllable if they arise.

This is a place for government. There is a need to be seen to be leading the way in developing regulatory frameworks that will give the broader community the assurance it needs that the science is safe.

With respect to nanotechnology, the Government bases its position on three major principles:

• to protect the health and safety of humankind and the environment;
• to foster informed community debate; and
• to achieve economic and social benefit from responsible adoption of the technology.

To save buying into descriptions of countless government programs, let’s look at the area most relevant to your discussions today, the National Enabling Technologies Strategy – we all call it NETS. It is funded through the Future Industries component of the Super Science Initiative.

Innovation Minister Senator Kim Carr told an ACTU OH&S and Workers’ Compensation Seminar last year that the Government regarded nanotechnology as an especially big issue for Australian workers increasingly encountering nanomaterials in the production environment and the broader workplace.

The Minister said we (Australia) needed to achieve the highest possible degree of material progress – without losing sight of obligations to protect the environment and the wellbeing of individuals and communities – and without unreasonably inhibiting innovation. An important path to walk.

To this end there are studies funded through NETS that are investigating things like: improved understanding of how nanoparticles behave; the adequacy of the existing regulatory framework –its responsiveness and strength; whether workplace control measures are equal to the challenge of dealing with nanomaterials.

These are important parts of the whole.

But there is another part of that whole: integrity. I believe it is the common thread that joins what we do across all the programs and all the regulations.

It is the integrity with which the scientists go about their work; it is the integrity of the regulatory frameworks; it is the integrity with which we treat our scientists across the board – heeding the body of evidence they have amassed and verified through credible research.

It all comes down to integrity. And making sure that the public is aware of the integrity with which science is conducted – and understand the means by which unethical behaviour is found out – whether by peer review or by regulatory framework.

It is one thing of course, to do the science well. If we are to achieve a better lot for humankind, the good science must be taken up and turned into products or services to provide that advantage.

There are a number of initiatives that will give NETS the “legs” to do so, so to speak.

The Department of Innovation engaged the research industry-led Australian Nanotechnology Alliance (ANA) to update the Nanotechnology Capability Report which outlines the capabilities of the sector in Australia. With the latest information on Australia’s nanotechnology sector, the fourth edition of the report contains entries from participating companies, research organisations and Government bodies. It enables connection between the private sector, research institutions, infrastructure bodies and Australian government agencies involved in nanotechnology.

One of NETS foci is on public engagement and the need to present science in a way that truly engages. A laudable aim; one that we all should follow. Other areas that fall within its ambit include the biotech sector – again, not entirely foreign to the audience today.

Exciting new developments in industrial biotechnology such as biofuels, bio-plastics and bio-chemicals, some undertaken right here at AIBN, offers us a glimpse into a low carbon future.

And in the health spectrum Australian biotech innovators like Acrux, Mesoblast and Biota Holdings are carrying the flag internationally. Here in Australia, companies are queuing behind them as they attain critical milestones like advanced-stage clinical trials, regulatory approvals and, for some, the holy grail of international capital and markets through landmark agreements.

With activities across such a broad range, I think we need to make it clear – in unambiguous language – that, as part of the Enabling Technologies Strategy, the Government is examining the environmental, health and safety effects of nanotechnology and biotechnology – and how to guard against any that may prove harmful.

This includes understanding the potential health and safety effects of nano-sized materials and investigating the effectiveness of workplace control measures for them. Vaccines and other medicines, ointments and lotions, manufactured materials and components … each and every one of them has to be exhaustively trialled and certified as safe.

To suggest otherwise would be preposterous and the sooner people realise how to judge the sometimes extravagant claims that certain scientific research is dangerous or life-threatening, the more rewarding the debate will be. The greater the level of understanding, the greater the level of support.

If we don’t counter claims when they are silly or wrong, with good sense, with rational explanations and with regulatory rigour, we will have lost at the first hurdle those with whom we want to engage.

We must be alert to a changing relationship between science and society – particularly where contentious technologies are concerned. Such technologies must have not only community support, but also meet community needs.

We learned from the first generation of Genetically Modified crops that consumers felt they delivered them few benefits. The perception was that companies and farmers were reaping the benefits, while the community carried the risks.

And while we’re talking about growing food, bear in mind that our global population, currently at the seven billion mark, is projected to reach nine billion by 2050.

To feed so many, we will have to double current levels of food production. That’s a horrifying statistic – I don’t think that’s too strong a word – in a world where 40 per cent of agricultural land is already badly degraded.

The Inter Action Council, an international body which has been monitoring these issues since the early 1980s, corroborates the OECD view.

It says that even the most optimistic forecasts suggest that some 700 million people, 200 million of them children, are likely to remain malnourished by the year 2020 – less than a decade away.

Scientists will have to play an important part in addressing the food gap and it will be a longer, harder row to hoe if, each time they arrive at a potential solution to world hunger, they have to run the gauntlet of adverse public opinion.

I wrote recently for the New Scientist that we have an obligation to use our expertise to help inform the public and policy makers – regardless of whether we are communicating topics we think are good or bad news. If we fear discussing risks as well as benefits, we diminish trust and increase the likelihood of the rejection of new technologies.

This is due in no small part to the largely uninformed who have the wherewithal to get their opinions heard. A better informed community would help put the doomsayers in their place.  

Then there are those who try to turn doubt and apprehension to their advantage. We need only to think back a few days to the fracas about sunscreen to find an example of that.

It’s natural that many contentious technologies are initially met with concern and viewed cautiously.

Conversely, fear campaigns extend those concerns.

Large slabs of the public are really only interested in the why and probably the how of the science you do – and will judge it harshly if it doesn’t align with their values.

We’ve seen this in the climate change debate; we’ve seen it with GM foods and crops, and with embryonic stem cells. Scientists have had to confront death threats, destruction of their research, legal action and misinformation campaigns from those ideologically opposed to their work.

But as much as you believe in the importance of your work you’ll need to believe in the importance of better communicating and engaging with the public. And engaging with our schools.

Only last week, an online teaching resource TechNyou, was launched at the Conference of Australian Science Teachers.

TechNyou, developed by science teachers for science teachers, focuses on biotechnology and nanotechnology, addressing the new science curriculum with background notes, videos, lesson outlines and classroom activities.

I said before that science is a great story.

We need to be able to tell it in plain language, free from embellishments and free from the misrepresentation that so colours what I hesitate to call “the debate”. We need to tell someone when they get it wrong – not one of us but all of us.

It’s too easy to dismiss a lone opinion as coming from a vested interest (although the they would say that wouldn’t they brigade do imagine a vast conspiracy of scientists with the single aim of reinforcing each other’s bid for more money.

It’s still a lot harder to ignore the combined opinion of an entire industry sector or school of scientific thought. It is this very point that we need to stand strong on and communicate to the public. We need to own this responsibility because if we don’t speak out about the science and its value and the fact that overwhelmingly it is conducted in a highly ethical environment and is truly based on the disinterested pursuit of knowledge so that we know more, understand better, and that is ultimately for the public good.

Thank you.”

To download Professor Chubb’s speech to launch the Australian Centre for Nanomedicine at UNSW click here (pdf)

“Ladies and Gentlemen, thank you for inviting me to speak to you today as Australia’s Chief Scientist, and to open formally the Australian Centre for Nanomedicine.

Nanoscience and the applications of it in many areas, but especially medicine, will open up new opportunities to make the world a better place. Healthier, more prosperous, wiser – we hope. I have no doubt about any of that.

But we will have to work at it to make sure that the full potential is realised.

Let me first state the obvious – the world faces many challenges. If I were to try to list them, I would not do justice to them all. But let me name just a few: Climate change; the impact of changed rainfall patterns; reduced arable land and soil fertility; food supply; water both potable and that used for irrigation and other uses; pandemics; ageing populations; a global population of ~9 billion by 2050.

The real question for all of us is almost as obvious: how do we face them, face them down, really? Just doing more of what we do now will not be the answer. We can barely do all that is necessary to be healthy and wise and well fed in 2011 let alone the prepare ourselves for a world with another 2 billion people by 2050.

Like many of you in this room, I can argue that it will be science that provides the answers – or at least many of them: good science, relevant science and ethical science. Science conducted with integrity and science that responds to critique made with integrity. It will be science that meets broadly acceptable community standards – ones that are clearly designed to meet expectations while advancing knowledge and its application in the public interest.

It is imperative that we invest in our wit, and build our capacity, to develop our scientific research and our industry for our future.

Science for the sake of expanding our knowledge of what we are, why we are what we are; and how we got to be here is important. Indeed, it is one of the great challenges of humanity – learning the very nature of things.

But so, too, is taking what we have learnt and applying it to some of the other great challenges that confront humanity.

I am pleased to note that the ACN is bridging the gap between academic research, industries and clinical applications. By combining science, engineering, and medicine along with the Children’s Cancer Institute Australia and Centre for Advanced Macromolecular Design, you are essentially creating a critical mass that spans the research spectrum. You are developing the benefits that come from cross-disciplinary or inter-disciplinary research and using the same disciplines to turn knowledge into application.

There are examples of remarkable work being done all around the world that to me, from the outside, seems almost limitless when we think of the potential applications to medicine. Now I am sure that if there are limits, we will find them.

But I congratulate scientists here in NSW for their work that includes uses for nanotechnology in new delivery systems, biosensing systems, in repairing damaged cells with the potential, for example, to improve outcomes for spinal cord injuries, for the targeting of vaccines. And I am sure there are many more.

All this work, indeed, the work of scientists everywhere, will help lead to a better future.

As we look towards securing a healthier a future, and as we seek to extend the local economic benefits, we must accept the need to get better at what we do. We won’t get there if we stay in our discipline silos, or think that some forms of research have a higher value than others.

But we will in this area with the nanotechnology industry and the R&D sector working together, because when they do that well, good things happen. And good things lead to products and services that make people’s lives better, healthier and safer.

In turn, I might add, this will help ensure Australia’s future prosperity by helping to retain high-quality, high-value jobs and improve our health, wellbeing and environment.

In order to encourage this innovation, the Australian Government has established the 4 year $38.2 million National Enabling Technologies Strategy (NETS) which focuses on biotechnology and nanotechnology.

The Strategy will run until the end of the 2012/13 financial year. It includes six themes:

• A national approach
• Balancing risk and reward
• Developing measurement capabilities
• Engaging with the public
• Using technology for a better future
• Planning for the Future

The Strategy has a strong focus on public engagement to encourage greater community participation in debates about the development and use of enabling technologies. Not all are instantly accepted. And getting acceptance is an important part of the work.

It is important that the public know that there is a serious regulatory and ethical environment within which scientists work. Why? Well when we look around us right now, we see scare campaigns being run for whatever purpose but probably to stop something. If the public is not well informed – because we have not been doing that part of our job well – it is easy to persuade that fear is justified.

Science must be seen in context and when controversial or difficult issues arise, we need to involve the public in order for them to be able have their concerns dealt with correctly, weighing up both the pros and the cons of the issue.

In order to ensure our R&D effort continues we need, all of us, to be advocates for science. It is important that the community realises the value of science and its impact on their lives.

I think that people take for granted the very worthwhile outcomes of science – or they are at least put off by those who live by the mantra that you don’t have to be right, sowing doubt is enough.

It’s incumbent on all of us to ensure that we raise the profile of science. And that our children and grand children have a level of science literacy that far exceeds the norm today.

In turn this will encourage more people to embrace the notion that a career in science is highly worthwhile.

Can I ask that you join with me, and that you work at all levels, to engage with your industry partners in Australia and overseas, with the community and with your local schools to remind them just how important science is to their lives; to their lifestyle and particularly, their health.

I also ask you to be vocal in your communities in your support for science and particularly in this area of science where you have special expertise. The reality is that if we don’t tell people about the importance of science and what it means to them, the importance of what you do, how will they ever really know? And it is too important simply to think that they will find out somehow. Too important to leave to others to get the message across, we must own that responsibility.

With that in mind, it is with great pleasure that I open the Australian Centre for Nanomedicine. I wish it every success and look forward to the life altering discoveries that come out of this fantastic multidisciplinary workplace.”

From house paint that acts as insulation to jet fuel made from plants, new technologies are paving the way forward in climate change adaptation and mitigation.

By using groundbreaking developments in nanotechnology and biotechnology, scientists and engineers are able to develop new materials that will drastically increase energy efficiency around the world.

Nanotechnology refers to the science of the very, very, (very) small-  a nanometre is just one millionth of a millimetre. By looking at materials on such a small scale, scientists are able to manipulate atoms and develop all new materials, including graphene, whose inventor won a Nobel Prize this year.

Biotechnology on the other hand, uses living things like plants, bacteria and genes, to develop new methods of conducting science, or developing new organisms.

To learn about the role nanotechnolgoy and biotechnology are playing in the battle against climate change, and all the brand new technologies, download this brochure, produced by CSIRO, TechNyou and the Department of Innovation, Industry, Science and Research.

Engineers at the University of California, Berkley have recently developed artificial skin that could one day mimic the touch and sensitivity of human skin necessary for a robot to undertake this delicate task[i].

They’re calling it ‘e-skin’ and researchers are suggesting it could help with one of the big challenges in robotics – the ability to sense the amount of force required to handle different objects, from fragile eggs to sturdy frypans.

But this research has far more exciting applications than building robots that can make scrambled eggs without smashing in parts of the shell. As technology linking artificial electronics to human nerves advances, it has enormous potential to restore the sense of touch for people with artificial limbs.

“The idea is to have a material that functions like the human skin, which means incorporating the ability to feel and touch objects,” said Ali Javey, Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences and head of the UC Berkeley research team developing the artificial skin.

“If we ever wanted a robot that could unload the dishes, for instance, we’d want to make sure it doesn’t break the wine glasses in the process.  But we’d also want the robot to be able to grip a stock pot without dropping it.”

Previous attempts to make artificial skin have used organic materials (that are generally derived from once-living things) that are very flexible but not good electrical conductors.  The researchers at Berkley made a big advance by finding a way to make their e-skin out of artificial, inorganic substances that have the flexibility of organic material but are much better at conducting electrical signals.

Their advances relied on their ability to manipulate nanowires, structures so tiny that scientists ‘grow’ them atom by atom.  They are called nanowires because they can be as small as one nanometer, which is one billionth of a meter and many thousands of times narrower than a human hair.

To make e-skin, nanowires, made from germanium and silicon, are grown on the outside of a cylinder so they can be rolled in an ordered pattern onto material to form the base layer of the artificial skin.  The researchers involved have described this method as a high-tech lint roller in reverse.

In their recently published research, the engineers layered a seven by seven centimetre square of the nanowire matrix with touch sensitive rubber and demonstrated its ability to detect pressure in a range that we use everyday for things like typing on a keyboard.  They also proved it could still work after repeated bending, a durability that is a vital part of being able to successfully apply artificial skin to prosthetic limbs.

While seven centimetres may not sound like a large patch of e-skin, this is the first time ordered nanowires have been used in a functional system like this.

“This is the first truly macroscale integration of ordered nanowire materials for a functional system — in this case, an electronic skin,” said study lead author Kuniharu Takei.

“It’s a technique that can be potentially scaled up. The limit now to the size of the e-skin we developed is the size of the processing tools we are using.”

[i] Takei K, Takahashi T, Ho J C, Ko H, Gillies A G, Leu P W, Fearing R S and Javey A, 2010. Nanowire active-matrix circuitry for low-voltage macroscale artificial skin. Nature Materials; 10, 821-826.

Nanotechnology is beginning to pervade society, with the tiny particles finding their way into consumer products such as sunscreens, along with advanced materials, and technology used in ICT, catalysis, chemical and biological sensing and medical diagnosis. It is expected that within a decade, the international market for products embodying nanotechnology will be worth trillions of dollars a year. According to Dr Jämting, in this context it is important that we understand how factors such as temperature and humidity can influence the accuracy of tests that measure nanparticles.

Read ’sizing up the nanoworld‘

Nanotechnology is often considered one of the newest fields of science and has been born as a result of scientists new found ability to control matter (atoms and molecules) one or a few at a time.  This makes the construction of new, never before possible devices such as virus seeking particles a real possibility in the future.  There is no doubt that nanotechnology, working on a scale 1 billionth part of a meter, will have an enormous impact on a large number of industries – and it will change our lives

Water molecules flowing through a carbon nanotube. (Credit: http://www.physorg.com/news8116.html M. Denomme, University of Kentucky)

Nanotechnology is science at the molecular level and, like biotechnology and information technology, is a growth industry with the potential to greatly change the world in which we live.  According to Nobel Laureate Dr. Richard Smalley “Nanotechnology will reverse the damage caused by the Industrial Revolution.”   One of the great promises of nanotechnology is that for the first time scientists have at their disposal tools similar in dimension to the species being detected or manipulated.  Prior to nanotechnology, many detection approaches were much akin to driving nails in with a sledge hammer in the sense that only very high concentrations could be detected and often not with much selectivity.  The ability to use molecular building blocks, allows the tuning of sensor interactions to dramatically improve the sensitivity and selectivity of detection.

The ability to work on this incredibly small scale highlights the truth in the adage “size does matter”.  On the scale of the nanometer this is true for two reasons.  First, material on the nanoscale can often adopt new properties due to the small size and for example, material that is dull on normal scale can be made to glow brightly when made on the nanoscale.  Second, size matters when two pieces must fit together precisely as in the example of a plug and drain.   For example, the ability to filter water would be considerably enhanced with a system where only water would pass through the membrane and everything else was left behind.  Carbon nanotubes show great promise to do just this and the filtering will be very energy efficient.

The other great benefit of nanotechnology is that problems are being tackled by teams of scientists.  Nanotechnology works at the crossroads of chemistry, physics, biology and material science, and so requires scientists from all these multiple disciplines to collaborate.  This has had the wonderful effect of seeing new solutions to old and difficult problems emerge.  For example, the chemists’ ability to form materials that are biocompatible holds the promise of new drug therapies where only the effected tissue is treated and a single dose of medicine can be slowly released over time to provide the best treatment.

Nanotechnology is ever-present in today’s modern world. You may not realise it, but everyday we use products that contain technology engineered on the micron or nanometre scale.  Mobile phones, ink-jet printers and car airbag systems all employ components made with nano- and micro-technology. There are various “nano additives” in many products such as sporting goods and cosmetics.  In healthcare, routine tests now make use of nanotechnology to fluorescently “label” individual cells, and techniques such as lab-on-a-chip are now essential tools for the bio-chemist and life-scientist.

Nanoparticle targeting a specific cell. (Credit: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2008/nanoparticles.jpg)

The real excitement about nanotechnology lies in what might be next.   Current “nano products” have not taken advantage of special features that operating at such a scale offers but there are now research examples that do just that.  For example, engineering of nanoparticles with growth factors has seen the repair of spinal cords even a considerable length of time after injury.  Other work has seen specific targeting of cancer cells or tumours in ways that will allow early detection and subsequent treatment of cancer that is far less invasive than current approaches as well as being much more effective.

While there will never be a “nanotechnology aisle” at the supermarket, nanotechnology will undoubtedly fundamentally change the way many things in society work.

This article was written by Professor Joe Shapter, Flinders University

http://www.scieng.flinders.edu.au/cpes/courses/nanotech.html
http://www.flinders.edu.au/science_engineering/our-faculty/research/areas-of-research/nano.cfm

The only reliable way to find out whether the internal structures of an aircraft are corroded is to pull the plan apart and look.  But new nanotechnology-based techniques being developed by physicists including Professor Tanya Monro, of the University of Adelaide could make costly visual inspection in preventative aircraft maintenance a thing of the past.

SCIENCE AT THE BOUNDARIES