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New breed thinks small


By Michael Hardy
The next big technology sector for the Potomac region could be focused on little things.

Both Maryland and Virginia are home to growing nanotechnology companies, with Virginia taking the lead by trying to move the science from the academic setting into the marketplace. Universities and businesses in the commonwealth have formed a consortium aimed at fostering research and commercialization, called the Initiative for Nanotechnology in Virginia (INanoVa).

Nanotechnology, the science of manipulating individual atoms and molecules to create microscopic machines, has applications in industries ranging from manufacturing to medicine to computing. The word is derived from “nanometer,” one billionth of a meter.

A two-day nano-business conference set for April 25 and 26 at Virginia’s Center for Innovative Technology in Herndon will mark the formal launch of INanoVa, with $100,000 in CIT funding. The CIT’s interest grew out of a scientific conference a year ago, said Nancy Vorona, senior industry director of advanced materials and electronics at the organization.

“It was clear at that time there was a lot going on,” she said. “We saw an opportunity to accelerate that research and accelerate bringing that science to the marketplace.”

Nanotech firms in the region are working in different areas of the field. Mitre Corp. in McLean, Va., is developing nano-scale computers, while Luna Innovations LLC in Blacksburg, Va., has developed a sphere made of 80 carbon atoms and a single nitrogen atom that the company is testing for several different medical uses.

Baltimore-based Reactive NanoTechnologies is developing foils made of alternating layers of metals only 100 atoms thick that can be used for extremely precise welding and soldering, while NanoTitan Inc., of Potomac Falls, Va., is about to release computer software to aid nano-scale design companies.

Some nanotech advances improve processes or speed up activities. Others could be revolutionary, like the nanocomputers that Mitre and other researchers are working on, said James Ellenbogen, Mitre’s principal scientist.

“It’s not just a little bit smaller,” he said. “They’re a lot smaller.”

In a conventional desktop computer, Ellenbogen explained, there are anywhere from 10 million to 50 million transistors on a chip the size of a couple of postage stamps. The nano chip, the size of a grain of salt, could hold 10 to 50 billion nano-transistors. “Your grandchildren won’t understand what it means to buy a computer, because computers will be in everything,” Ellenbogen said.

INanoVa’s mission is to encourage collaborative research and the transfer of nanotechnology from universities to private companies, said INanoVa’s director, Nathan Swami, a former entrepreneur who is now on the faculty of the University of Virginia in Charlottesville.

The national NanoBusiness Alliance, a trade group based in New York, is planning to develop an advisory board spanning Maryland and Virginia, said Mark Modzelewski, the group’s executive director. He will start laying the groundwork for that at the CIT conference, then convene a formal organizational meeting this summer.

Organizations like INanoVa and the NanoBusiness Alliance can help build the region into a major player in the industry, said Vic Pena, co-founder and chief executive officer at 1-year-old NanoTitan.

“Nanotechnology has to be collaborative,” he said. “In this regard, Virginia is extremely strong. It’s got some great universities that are doing a great amount of work.”

Virginia has moved ahead of Maryland in organizing resources to cultivate the industry, but some players say the Old Dominion needs to pick up its pace even more to stay competitive with emerging nanotech centers in New York, Texas, California and Chicago.

“We have some really unique capabilities in our universities, but there’s not a whole lot of backing from the state,” said Kent Murphy, co-founder, CEO and chairman at Luna Innovations. “We’re missing a big opportunity here.”

Cynthia Kuper, founder and president of Versilant Nanotechnologies in Philadelphia, is trying to create a nanotechnology commercialization group that would include Maryland along with Pennsylvania, Delaware and New Jersey, but it’s still in the early planning stages.

“I don’t think we’re poised to be a force right now,” she said. “Something needs to happen in the next six months to a year or we’re out of the race. We need to build an infrastructure for small business. The resources need to be identified and put together.”

But there are promising signs in Maryland, including the emergence of some private investment firms willing to consider nanotech. Toucan Capital in Bethesda is examining several such firms for investments from its $120 million fund, although it hasn’t made any yet, said Managing Partner Robert Hemphill.

“Over the last couple of years, increasingly when you go to nanotechnology scientific meetings, venture capitalists and other types of financiers are ubiquitously there,” added Mitre’s Ellenbogen. “A lot of companies have researchers at these meetings too, whereas in the past it was mostly universities.” NanoBusiness’s Modzelewski estimates that venture capitalists will invest about $1 billion in nanotech this year.

Still, much of the funding comes from other sources. Luna Innovations developed its carbon spheres using $2 million in grants from the National Institute of Standards and Technology, a federal agency based in Gaithersburg, Md. NanoTitan turned a small profit in its first year by selling services, but now is looking for venture funding. Maryland’s Technology Development Corp. invested $50,000 in Reactive NanoTechnologies.

But Jack Biddle, founding partner of Bethesda-based venture firm Novak Biddle Partners, believes investors are going to be wary of getting caught up in hype. Too many of them have been burned, he said, putting money into an innovative idea that turned out to have no market.

“What’s special is solving a problem that heretofore has not been solved,” he said. “A customer problem, not a physics problem.”