Nanotechnology Research – Initiatives, Networks and Associations

ACTION-Grid is a Specific International Cooperation Project on healthcare information systems based on Grid capabilities and Biomedical Informatics (BMI) and nanoinformatics between Latin America, the Western Balkans and the European Union (EU).

AMBIO (Advanced Nanostructured Surfaces for the Control of Biofouling) is an Integrated Project funded by the European Commission under its Sixth Framework Programme. The project is at the crossroads between nanosciences and marine biology, environment and high technology and is devoted to the knowledge-based development of antifouling coatings that function through their nanoscale physico-chemical properties, without the release of biocides which may damage the environment.

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.

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.

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.

Charged Particle Nanotech is an Integrated Project in the European Sixth Framework Programme (FP6), research priority NMP ('Nanotechnologies and Nanosciences, knowledge-based Multifunctional Materials, and new Production Processes and Devices'). CHARPAN is driven by industrial needs for new efficient production technologies for the fabrication of complex 2D and 3D surface structures necessary in numerous nanotechnology devices such as templates for nanoimprint applications.

A Marie Research Training Network which apporoaches the general goal of probing, understanding and using chiral molecular and supramolecular interactions at the nanoscale.

The EU FP6 project Circles of Light is expected to increase the European competitiveness in Nanophotonics by providing new solutions to overcome technological gaps and to make silicon a leading material base also in photonics.