Volume 2, Issue 10
Berkeley's Scientific Legacy
Berkeley Nanotechnology Club
The science-fiction fantasy of nanotechnology — building novel structures, devices, and materials at the atomic or molecular scale — is becoming a reality. However for nanoscience and nanotechnology to fully realize its great potential, research efforts must cross many disciplines, from engineering, chemistry, physics, and biology to law and business. At the center of UC Berkeley's cross-disciplinary nano efforts is an organization founded by two passionate students.
In late 2003, MBA student Marcel Roche and mechanical engineering graduate student Ryan Layton launched the Berkeley Nanotechnology Club to foster interest in what they believe is "the next big thing" at the intersection of science, engineering, and business. In less than two years, several hundred students from such diverse disciplines as chemistry, physics, biology, business, engineering, and law have joined the club to explore how interdisciplinary research on small technology could have a huge impact on everything from heavy industry and healthcare to the computer industry and the environment. On April 30, the club will hold its annual Berkeley Nanotechnology Forum, a public conference where leading scientists and entrepreneurs participate with the students in panel discussions, lectures, and old-fashioned networking. This year's keynote speaker will be Steven Chu, director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and co-winner of the 1997 Nobel Prize in physics.
Officially, the Nanotechnology Club has three objectives. The first is to disseminate useful information about nanotechnology, the ability to manipulate matter on the nanoscale to build new materials, structures, or devices. (A nanometer is one-billionth of a meter, or one-thousandth the diameter of a human hair.) Another goal is to organize events promoting the Bay Area's leadership in nanotechnology. Finally, its key objective is to spark entrepreneurship and spur technology transfer. According to Roche, "partnerships with interdisciplinary academic departments, particularly the Berkeley Management of Technology Program and the Nanoscience and Nanoengineering Institute, were instrumental in making the club a success."
"The club encourages the formation of teams of science and engineering students with Haas School of Business students to develop business plans around some of the new technologies that will emerge from the new Center of Integrated Nanomechanical Systems on campus," adds Thomas Kalil, Special Assistant to the Chancellor for Science and Technology and a faculty advisor to the club.
Indeed, UC Berkeley has already spun off several top tier nanotechnology companies, including Nanomix, Nanosys, and Quantum Dot Corporation. To help put future nanoscale innovations on the track toward commercialization, the Club launched the Nano Opportunity Challenge. The contest brings together teams of scientists, engineers, and business students who present their plan to commercialize a nanotechnology-enabled device. In the 2005 inaugural contest, the group that won the $2,000 first prize devised new wireless components that could enable the production of smaller, less expensive mobile phones with longer battery life. The $1,500 second prize went to a team whose tiny microfluidic plumbing system could enable the fabrication of a "lab-on-a-chip" for bioscience experiments and assays.
In all of their efforts, the club seeks to leverage and expand the symbiotic relationships that exist between Berkeley, Silicon Valley, and the entire Bay Area. For example, last year's Berkeley Nanotechnology Forum featured chemistry professor Paul Alivisatos, director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory's Molecular Foundry, along with representatives from IBM Almaden Research Center, NASA Ames Research Center, venture capital firm Draper Fisher Jurvetson, and several of the Berkeley-spawned nano start-ups.
This year, the forum participants will examine how nanotechnology could transform "the triple bottom line of business, society, and the environment." And that's no small matter.