NIH Launches Nanomedicine Initiative

NIH rolled out its Nanomedicine Initiative--part of the NIH Roadmap for Biomedical Research--last week at a public forum attended by 350 scientists and engineers. The meeting, designed to inform the scientific community and to get its feedback about the program, focused on the proposed Nanomedicine Development Centers, for which solicitations were just issued. Funding for these centers will begin in fiscal 2005, with $6 million for that first year. The Nanomedicine Initiative differs from other NIH nanotechnology initiatives in that it deals with understanding basic processes and design principles of biology that will be used to treat and cure diseases. "This is not nanotechnology for the sake of nanotechnology," said Paul Sieving, director of the National Eye Institute and cochair of the initiative implementation group. The initiative is projected to have a 10-year lifetime; its goal is to "characterize quantitatively the molecular scale components or nanomachinery of the cell and to control and manipulate these molecules and supramolecular assemblies in living cells to improve human health."