New Company to Focus on Nanotechnology

A new corporation, Nanokinetics, will focus on the development of the processes and devices needed to commercialize various nanotechnology applications.

Arrowhead Research Corp. (Pasadena, CA, USA), an emerging company in the field of nanotechnology, has reached an agreement with Dr. Michael Roukes, professor of physics, applied physics, and bioengineering at California Institute of Technology (Caltech,Pasadena, USA) and Caltech itself to form the new company. Dr. Roukes is widely recognized for his work on the physics and fabrication of nonoscale electronic devices.

Nanokinetics plans to focus on building the technologic base required to transition today's academic "nanoscience of the individual device” to the integration and mass production required for these market-ready products, thereby jumpstarting the commercialization of many nanotech applications. One application being developed by Dr. Roukes and his team is a microfluidic-based electronic biosensor based upon BioNEMS (biofunctionalized nanoelectromechanical systems). In the near term, nanosystems such as these, with naoscale sensor elements numbering in the hundreds and thousands, can provide powerful new approaches to biothreat detection, drug screening, and medical diagnosis with a sensitivity approaching the single molecule level.

"It is becoming clearer every day that the companies that make early and decisive investments to establish capabilities for complex nanodevice production will dominate the broader realm of commercial nanotechnology that lie beyond first-generation applications,” said Dr. Roukes.




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