National Institutes of Health (U.S.)

NIH and the NNI

NIH has participated in the National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI) since NNI's founding in 2001. That year, NIH's contribution to the pool of research and development funding managed by the NNI was $39 million, or about 9 percent of the total NNI budget of $422 million. NIH has been among the most active of the 25 federal agencies coordinated by NNI, and its activity in the area has been increasing. NIH's contribution grew both in size and proportion as the NNI's budget tripled by 2008. In 2008, NIH was responsible for about $226 million or 15 percent of the $1.5 billion federal spending on nanotechnology research coordinated by the NNI.

BECON and Private Enterprise

Much of NIH's early (pre-2004) nanotechnology activity was carried out by small businesses and fostered by the trans-NIH Bioengineering Consortium (BECON), which promoted the collaboration of life scientists, physical scientists, and engineers to solve medical problems. Although initially not formed to develop nanotechnology, BECON created an interdisciplinary space in which funding for high-risk private nanotechnology ventures became available. Specifically, BECON supported Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) projects through its Bioengineering Nanotechnology Initiative (established 2002, renewed 2005).

These projects tended to be small (under $400,000 total, later raised to $1,200,000), short term (two years maximum, later raised to three years), and highly speculative. Research and development areas emphasized included nanoscale materials science for creating interfaces with living tissue; nanoimaging in real time of subcellular processes; molecular and cellular signaling technologies; and nanomotors. BECON was dissolved in 2008, and support for its nanotechnology-related endeavors was absorbed by several NIH institutes, most notably the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB).

Nanotech and the NIH Roadmap

As NIH became a more prominent supporter of the development of nanotechnology, the technology also became more important to NIH's mission. Nanotechnology is a major component of the NIH Roadmap for Medical Research, which was initiated in September 2004 to improve biomedical research by overcoming specific, well-defined conceptual or technical challenges. Since the Roadmap's inception, nanotechnology has been seen as a promising potential mean to that end. Under the aegis of the broader Roadmap the NIH Nanomedicine Roadmap Initiative established a national network of eight interdisciplinary Nanomedicine Development Centers.

Typically, these centers are located at major research universities and medical schools, and house collaborative efforts of biologists, physicians, mathematicians, computer scientists, and/or engineers. In the first phase of the program (2005–10), these centers were generally involved in collecting information about the chemical and physical properties of biological structures on the nanoscale. In the second phase of the program (beginning 2010), which was approved in 2008, the Nanomedicine Development Centers will be given funds to apply the findings of the first phase to develop specific tools and techniques to understand and treat disease.

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