Nanotechnology Research – Initiatives, Networks & Associations

Dedicated to substantially enhancing Australia's research outcomes in this important field by promoting effective collaborations, exposing researchers to alternative and complementary approaches from other fields, encouraging forums for postgraduate students and early career researchers, increasing nanotechnology infrastructure, enhancing awareness of existing infrastructure, and promoting international links.

Research groups include: Biomembranes Group; Lipoproteins Group and Model Membranes Group.

A public funding programme for nanoscale sciences and nanotechnology. The annual public budget is EURO 15 m.

Team AVNP, a closely linked and complementary team of University and Industrial Partners, proposes to accelerate rapidly the development and commercialisation of an innovative new health product - an anti-viral nanomaterial targeted initially at pandemic viruses such as H5N1 Bird Flu, but with potential to be a broad spectrum antiviral material.

New nanostructures, nanodevices, and nanocircuits are the goal of FORNEL. The Research Cooperation conducts research and development on new materials and deposition techniques for ultra-thin layers as well as for nanoimprint, an alternative lithography technique.

The Bay Area Nanotechnology Forum is a group of stakeholders in the economic future of the San Francisco Bay Area organized by the Northern California Nanotechnology Initiative.

The Berkeley Nanotechnology Club fosters and promotes information exchange and entrepreneurship opportunities for Berkeley students and alumni in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Until now, there has been no single organisation providing a seamless concept-to-market route for the emerging bio-nanotechnology sector. The UK's new Bio Nano Centre takes the lead by leveraging £50M of new investment in the London Centre for Nanotechnology and the Imperial Institute for Biomedical Engineering coupled to London's vast medical research complex to deliver rapid lab-to-prototype development services. The Bio Nano Centre completes the value chain for companies seeking to rapidly develop, prototype and commercialise new biomedical products by providing a range of high-value infrastructure and capabilities.

The vision of BIODOT is a hybrid bio-organic technology for transduction of dynamical phenomena of biosystems in-vitro. The device that will be developed is based on organic ultra thin film transistors integrated with microfluidics.

This EU project seeks to provide Europe with a major time advantage over their main international competitors by developing a bionanotechnological device that can be used as a nanoactuator/biosensor, which also provides a novel interface between the Biological and Silicon Worlds.

BioNanoNet is a bionanotechnology network in Austria that carries out innovative interdisciplinary research in the field of drug development. Within this network new agents, action and application strategies are being developed by using techniques of nanotechnology. Research efforts are aimed at finding new agents and new treatment strategies for chronic degenerative and infectious diseases.

BBSRC is the UK's leading funding agency for academic research and training in the non-clinical life sciences. It supports several Interdisciplinary Research Collaborations (IRC) in nanotechnology.

The BIOTEX project aims at developing dedicated biochemical-sensing techniques compatible with integration into textile. The consortium includes two research institutes in the field of micro and nanotechnology.

CNBA is a nanotechnology association and facilitator. Its dual mission is to establish a Canadian National Nanotechnology Initiative including the creation of commercially-oriented nanotech hubs, the promotion of nanotechnology in Canada, and the promotion of Canadian nanotechnology capabilities internationally, and to develop major nanotechnology initiatives across the globe.

This consortium is sponsored by European Community under Framework Program 6. It gathers 15 research and industrial partners to improve the fundamental knowledge of carbon nanotubes as well as their applications.

A non-profit research organization that brings together the various elements, across international boundaries, which are required for successfully transitioning exciting micro-nano technologies into aerospace systems.

In this project, the team plans to take advantage of the extraordinary electronic and mechanical properties of carbon nanotubes. We plan to extend the operation of HEMT/FET-type nanotube devices to the quantum limit, and to demonstrate their usefulness in conjunction with a mechanical nanotube resonator serving as a force sensor at sub-attoNewton resolution.

(In German) A German network for innovative materials on the basis of chemical nanotechnology.

CellNanoTox, 'Cellular Interaction and Toxicology with Engineered Nanoparticles', is a Specific Targeted Research Project funded by the European Commission under the Sixth Framework Program. The project addresses the needs of the European society for assessing the risk of occupational and general population exposure to industrially manufactured nanoparticles. It is expected to generate new knowledge on potential health risk or the absence of it, providing objective arguments for recommendations and regulations.

CellPROM - beginning March 2004 - is the largest Integrated Project within the NMP priority of the 6th Framework Programme of the European Commission. CellPROM unites 27 academic and industrial researchers from 12 countries for a period of four years to achieve its main objective of non-invasive 'reprogramming' of individual cells on an industrial scale.

CeNTech was created as one of Germany's first centers for nanotechnology. Integrated into the densest network of universities in all over Europe in the German state of North Rhine-Westfalia (NRW), CeNTech provides the ideal environment to direct selected ideas and results of nanotechnological research into technical applications.

The Center for Cancer Research Nanobiology Program (CCRNP) serves as a catalyst to move forward multidisciplinary efforts in the area of Cancer Nanotechnology.

CMPND develops manufacturing protocols and nanostructures for near-term industrial polymeric nanocomposites, emerging polymer photonic components and devices, and more futuristic biomedical devices and systems with nanoscale functions.

The mission of CeNS is to promote, coordinate, and bundle interdisciplinary research in the field of nanoscience. CeNS consolidates research activities at the nanometer scale from the areas of physics, biophysics, chemistry, biochemistry, and medicine. The network promotes the mutual understanding and collaboration between researchers from these different disciplines by joint seminars, workshops, and schools which are organized by CeNS.

A non-profit research and advocacy think tank concerned with the major societal and environmental implications of advanced nanotechnology.