The federal government should sharpen the focus of its nanotechnology environmental, health, and safety R&D program to address the specific questions that industry and regulatory agencies have as nanotechnologies are commercialized. That opinion is from a report released on 25 March from the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology. PCAST also recommends strengthening the inter-agency coordinating mechanism for the National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI) by recruiting two new individuals, one to coordinate the EHS R&D efforts that are dispersed throughout the government and the other to oversee the development of standards, which are critical for many aspects of EHS and also for commercialization and testing of products.
The report finds that the 10-year-old NNI “has had a catalytic and substantial impact on the field of nanotechnology,” said Maxine Savitz, cochair of the PCAST working group that performed the assessment. The US, she told reporters, continues to lead the world...
