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Madison, Wis., University's Nanotechnology Center Lands Large Federal Grant

Posted on: Tuesday, 27 September 2005, 15:00 CDT

By Jason Stein, The Wisconsin State Journal

Sep. 27--A UW-Madison center for nanotechnology has snagged millions in federal dollars to pursue research toward stem cell medical breakthroughs and computer displays that one day might be rolled up like a poster.

Juan de Pablo, director of UW-Madison's Materials Research Science and Engineering Center, said he'd learned Monday that the National Science Foundation is awarding his center $14.8 million to continue its work over the next six years. The federal agency is funding a select few centers around the country that do research into materials and nanotechnology, the science of working at incredibly small scales.

"Many of the centers were actually cut or discontinued," de Pablo said. "And this amounts to a slight increase (in funding)."

The federal grant emphasizes the importance of having university researchers with a variety of strengths, from engineering to biology, said Tom Still, president of the Wisconsin Technology Council. "Most work these days is taking place across multiple scientific disciplines and nanotechnology is a platform to support them all."

The center's work focuses on the boundaries and interactions between different kinds of materials, de Pablo said.

About one-third of the center's research will focus on the interface between plastics and semiconductors like silicon with an eye toward making flexible electronic devices, he said. "You can start thinking about completely flexible displays, for example, for computers, TVs, all sorts of exciting things."

Another high-profile area, de Pablo said, is using plastics with features at least a thousand times smaller than the width of a human hair to guide the growth and differentiation of stem cells, the blank-slate cells that hold promise for a variety of medical cures.

Still said research by the Technology Council showed that a grant of this size could help maintain or create almost 90 jobs a year, most of them locally.

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Copyright (c) 2005, The Wisconsin State Journal

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Source: The Wisconsin State Journal

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