{"id":1932,"date":"2006-07-16T15:17:38","date_gmt":"2006-07-16T19:17:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/engineering.jhu.edu\/magazine-archive\/?p=1932"},"modified":"2014-12-16T15:18:21","modified_gmt":"2014-12-16T20:18:21","slug":"lets-think-small","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/engineering.jhu.edu\/magazine-archive\/2006\/07\/lets-think-small\/","title":{"rendered":"Let\u2019s Think Small"},"content":{"rendered":"

With the tiniest particles, probes, and therapeutic agents, Johns Hopkins nanobiotechnology researchers are set to supersize their efforts to advance medicine, engineering, biology, and public health. <\/strong><\/p>\n

NANOTECHNOLOGY IS A PARADOX<\/strong>, for even the smallest bit of matter can have the most profound impact. Thanks to silicon, ever-smaller manufacturing technology has revolutionized electronics. The next frontier in which tiny will triumph\u2014nanobiotechnology\u2014is poised to bring similarly remarkable results.<\/p>\n

One-billionth of a meter: It\u2019s hard even to imagine something that size. A nanometer (nm) is 1,000 times smaller than you can see in a conventional optical microscope. A nanoparticle might be only 50 atoms in diameter. Nanowires are less than 100 nm in diameter. As probes, carriers, and therapeutic agents, nano-engineered tools can be deployed to specific places or perform specific tasks.<\/p>\n

At the Johns Hopkins Institute for NanoBioTechnology (INBT), researchers are planning something very big for these small particles and tools. INBT launched in mid-May with a celebration and $6 million in start-up funding from the National Science Foundation, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, NASA, and Hopkins.<\/p>\n

The INBT reaches deeply into four divisions of the University\u2014the Bloomberg School of Public Health, the Krieger School of Arts and Sciences, the School of Medicine, and the Whiting School of Engineering. From these schools, INBT has created a completely new model for interdisciplinary research, an accelerated schedule for transferring new technologies into successful companies, and even a new kind of learning. This learning will be geared to the intensely interdisciplinary, market-savvy needs of biotechnology\u2014the science and the business. A minor in nanobiotechnology already is being planned for undergraduates in the Whiting and Krieger schools.<\/p>\n

As the new institute stretches across the fields of biology, engineering, public health, and medicine, here are just a few examples of the possibilities the INBT will create:<\/p>\n