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Industry Leader: No “Boogieman” Lurks

by Gwyneth K. Shaw | Jul 18, 2011 10:32 am

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Posted to: Nanotech

(NHI Nanoblog) Recent moves inside the U.S. government have unsettled some in the nascent nanotechnology industry. But Scott E. Rickert, CEO of Nanofilm, Inc., an Ohio-based coatings company, writes in Industry Week that the “nano-boogieman” isn’t lurking in the shadows.

Rickert acknowledges the concerns of innovators, manufacturers and researchers that efforts by the White House, Food and Drug Administration and Environmental Protection Agency to lay a foundation for future regulation might stifle them. Investors are panicking, Rickerts writes, joking that he expects to see “black armbands” in research labs, as scientists fear a drop in grant funding.

“So is it time to shutter the labs, find a new business, start nanotech speakeasies?” he writes. “I think not.”

Nanotechnology leverages the often-unique properties of super-small particles to create products with amazing qualities. These materials can make better batteries or lighter and stronger bike frames, as well as new medical instruments and medicines that can save lives. They’re increasingly common in consumer products, from “mineral-based” sunscreens to stain-repellent paints.

These nanomaterials are believed to hold great promise for a wide variety of applications. But shrinking these substances can change their properties, and scientists are struggling to figure out whether, how and why that shift can make them dangerous in the process.

Rickert outlines six reasons why there’s no putting nanotechnology back in the bottle, advocating for “business as usual” as the best medicine for squeamishness over what might—or might not—happen at the federal level.

There’s no question that the government’s small movement on nanotechnology, which is largely unregulated, has sent ripples through the industry. What’s particularly interesting about it is that the documents released last month don’t really do much other than send a signal about what might be coming in terms of actual regulations. Administration officials insist they want to work with industry, and vice versa.

We’ll see what happens to those good intentions.

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