It may be small, but nanotechnology is the next big thing

IT MAY focus on the very small, but, if we play our cards right, nanotechnology stands to have a large impact on Ireland’s competitiveness in the pharmaceutical, biotech and medical device sectors.

Nanotechnology involves working with materials or particles that measure less than 100 nanometres (billionths of a metre) in at least one dimension. At that scale, the physical and chemical properties of a material can change, opening up new opportunities, according to Harold Craighead, professor of applied and engineering physics and director of the Nanobiotechnology Center at Cornell University.

“A material might behave one way when it is larger and another when it is smaller,” says Craighead, who was in Dublin City University (DCU) last week for an international conference on nanotechnology-enabled sensors and diagnostics. “So without changing the chemical material, we can change the properties by working at smaller dimensions.”

In practice, this can be applied to gathering higher quality diagnostic information from the body about disease, says Craighead.

His research has spun out a company, Pacific Biosciences, to optically sort and characterise DNA molecules in biological samples, and he has also developed highly sensitive nano-devices to detect resonance from other targets, like viruses. “There are a lot of possible applications; we are not just limited to one current type of diagnostic, we can think about new ways of doing things,” he says.

Last week’s meeting sought to strengthen ties between DCU, the University of Ulster and Cornell. It identified overlapping areas where researchers could work together on “near patient” applications, says Prof Brian MacCraith, director of the Biomedical Diagnostics Institute at DCU.

“There is a lot of synergy,” says MacCraith, citing personalised cancer diagnosis and microfluidic platforms as two obvious areas where the groups could put their heads together and apply to large funding agencies in the US and Europe. And by linking up with other nanotechnology hubs around the country – including Tyndall in Cork, Crann in TCD and NanoBioInteract at UCD – and their associated industry partners, MacCraith believes Ireland can translate research into clinical point-of-care diagnosis, refined imaging techniques and targeted drug delivery. “Ireland is up there, we can compete,” says MacCraith.

“I think properly organised, properly resourced and properly centralised, we can actually make an impact within five years, and definitely beyond it.”

Innovations in diagnostics and delivery can feed into emerging trends in the pharma sector, such as the slide away from one-size-fits-all blockbuster products and towards more personalised medicine, explains Dr Ian Hunter of Goodbody Stockbrokers. And while the pharmaceutical and medical devices sectors here are weathering the economic storm reasonably well, nanotechnology can provide a competitive shot in the arm, providing a “sticky” kind of value that can stay in Ireland.