Originally Published EMDM
October 2003
A NOTE FROM THE EDITOR
Small Talk in St. Gallen Leads to Some Big Ideas
Considering the sudden glut of nanotechnology events, a backlash was inevitable.
Is the technology really that new, some columnists have grumbled. Aren’t some of the conference speakers simply sexing up papers that used to be about microtechnology? One writer in the Neue Zürcher Zeitung wondered if the nano prefix was not slyly being used by researchers to open doors for funding that otherwise might stay shut. That comment hurt, coming as it did on the eve of the first Nanofair in St. Gallen, Switzerland. There may be some truth to those remarks, but I think these observers are missing the forest for the trees. Nanotechnology is real, it is here, and it has ambitious designs on the future. Nanofair provided multiple examples.
Manipulating materials on an atomic or molecular scale has the potential to radically alter the manner in which countless products are designed and made. Nanotech innovations will be the foundation of a US$1 trillion business within the next 10 to 15 years, according to the US-based National Science Foundation. Medical technology is among the key areas of interest, as Leonard Fass from GE Corporate Research and Development pointed out during the conference.
Tissue engineering, drug delivery, biosensors, and imaging are on the shortlist of life science applications that stand to benefit from nanotech advances, Fass told attendees. “Medical systems will have many of their components derived from nanotechnology,” he said, but applications success is tied to a “systems approach.” Fass illustrated his thought with a point-of-care scenario.
“Personnel collecting medical data at the scene of an acute illness or accident will have access to in vitro analytical devices such as labs on a chip. Portable imaging systems based on microelectromechanical systems and nanoelectronics” will be part of their gear, he noted. Micro- and nanoscale electronics packaging will enable the development of a new generation of in vitro and in vivo sensors, handheld wireless diagnostic instruments, and wearable wireless monitors. We can expect to see “a 100¥ reduction in memory size and a tenfold size reduction in communications modules. High-density flexible interconnects will increase density by 5¥, while a zero interconnect length will dramatically increase speed,” said Fass.
Nanoscale manufacturing requires the appropriate machinery. Ivano Beltrami of Agie S.A. (www.agie.com), which specializes in electrical discharge machining (EDM) equipment, presented a paper on the company’s “nanofactory production system.” In collaboration with Mecartex (www.mecartex.com), a Swiss firm that produces flexible bearings, and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology’s robotics department, Agie has successfully developed and tested the Delta Cube II prototype, which it displayed on the show floor.
EDM tooling is out of proportion with the dimensions and tolerances required for the production of micro- and nanotechnology products, said Beltrami. The submicron positioning that is required to manufacture small medical implants and ophthalmic surgical tools, for example, is difficult to achieve with EDM equipment currently on the market. By contrast, a benchtop machine in an isolated nanofactory cell would lead to a reduction in the cost of energy and process materials, require less dielectric fluid, and enable more-flexible production methods. The project’s goal, noted Beltrami, is to develop a machine that achieves tolerances under 1 µm and parts roughness of approximately 0.5 to 0.1 µm. Everything is on track, he added, and a third Delta Cube prototype is in the works.
The use of cantilever sensor arrays as biosensors was explored by Felice Battiston of Concentris GmbH (www.concentris.com). A spin-off company from the Institute of Physics at the University of Basel, Switzerland, Concentris is involved in refining cantilever sensor–based instruments and finding viable applications.
Initially developed by the university and the IBM Zürich research laboratory, cantilever biosensors measure approximately 500 µm long and 100 µm wide. They are fixed to a solid support on one end, leaving the other end to move freely. The cantilever’s surface can be functionalized, by means of a coating, to bind with a given target molecule. The device responds to this binding process by bending and by exhibiting a change in its resonance frequency. Both of these effects can be reliably measured and correlated down to the atomic scale.
Cantisens technology, as it is called, offers a number of benefits for life-science applications, according to Battiston. Label-free biomolecular recognition is an important trend, and these biosensors are able to detect biomolecules without the use of fluorescent or radioactive markers. Cantilever biosensors enable parallel real-time monitoring of interactions, which opens up new applications in life sciences and drug- discovery research. In addition, the technology relies on standard silicon microfabrication processes, which is easily scalable.
What’s next? You’ll find out when Nanofair (www.nanofair.ch) returns to the Olma Messen in St. Gallen next year on September 14–16.
Copyright ©2003 European Medical Device Manufacturer
