Daniel Bayer
  Staff Writer

Students who graduate next year could see huge changes in their lives wrought by nanotechnology, the development of which just received a big boost locally with the awarding of an $1.8 million dollar grant to the Joint School of Nanoscience and Nanoengineering (JSNN) in Greensboro.
“Think of the technology that emerged in my lifetime. Remember the movie ‘Wall Street,’ where the character is on the beach carrying a huge portable phone? Now you can get ESPN on your smartphone,” Dr. James Ryan, founding dean of JSNN said. “That’s a profound change over our lifetime, and this technology will change it in profound ways again.”

The grant, which is from the National Science Foundation (NSC), will allow the school to become more accessible to companies and educational institutions who wish to use the technology, according to Ryan.

“We want to make clean room resources available to academia and industry,” Ryan said. “We want to expand this technology into other areas, and this is one portion of it. Companies can send people here to work on projects using our resources.”

UNC-Greensboro is part of a joint effort in the development of nanotechnology called the Southeastern Nanotechnology Infrastructure Corridor (SCENIC). The other two partners involved in the initiative are NCA&T and Georgia Tech.

The program was one of 16 in the U.S. funded by grants from the NSC and receive a total of $8 million over the next five years.

Among the developments nanotechnology could open up are wearable electronics, according to Ryan.

“You could have your cell phone embedded in your clothes,” Ryan said. “Diagnostic devices, drug delivery – all are emerging areas that require research. One example of the technology we’re working on here is speeding up DNA analysis. Right now it takes a long time, but if it’s successful DNA could analyzed during a visit to your doctor.”

Don’t expect to be talking into your shirt collar tomorrow, however.

“It will probably be 10 or 20 years to see the technology come to fruition,”