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Contents of this enews:
Message from NanoTech Insight Team
Getting Started
Conference Topics
Important Deadlines
The Conference Venue
Social Program
Speaker Spotlight - Article:
Nanotechnology and Precautionary Risk Management
Dear Colleagues,
Thank you for signing up for the NanoTech Insight E-news. This newsletter will keep you in touch with the ongoing updates to the NanoTech Insight Conference, and give you a sneak peak into what lies ahead in Luxor.
The slogan of this conference is "Because small matter is no small matter". We trust you will agree. In March 2007 the world's leading nanoscientists will gather for a second time in Luxor, Egypt to discuss the latest developments and trends in the hottest nanoresearch from across the globe. Only a planned and integrated development of nanoscience involving all global research communities can hope to provide comprehensive solutions for the development of responsible nanotechnology. We invite you to join us in this dialogue in Luxor that will join research communities worldwide and forge lasting global partnerships.
To make this event a success, we want to hear from you. We want to know your comments and suggestions, because your details matter. Please feel free to contact us at any time. It is our great pleasure to welcome you to Egypt,
Sincerely,
The NanoTech Insight Team
Getting Started:
The first step to sign up for the NanoTech Insight conference is to Create
a Login Account for yourself. Abstract
submission is now online. Simply log into your account to submit your abstract. Once you have done this, you can also submit a request for a lecture. Online
Registration is coming soon.
Please note: there is an extension for the Abstract Deadline of one week. Abstracts are now due by October 20th.
Topics:
NanoTech Insight aims to excite, inspire, and facilitate exchange of knowledge and expertise between all fields of the nanodomain. Additionally, the conference places special emphasis on "responsible nanotechnology" for sustainable development with special sessions on Nano applications for Clean and Renewable Energy and Nano Ethics/Environmental Impact.
Lectures and workshops will cover:
Bio-applications - Fabrication - Medical and Pharmaceutical Applications - Nano Applications for Clean and Renewable Energy - Nano Ethics / Environmental Impact - Nanomaterials and Structures - NanoTech For Industry - NanoTechniques - Optoelectronics and Photonics - Simulation and Molecular Dynamics - Single Molecules
Important Deadlines:
October 20: abstract submission deadline
November 6: abstract acceptance announcement
November 24: early bird registration deadline
January 12: regular registration deadline
The Conference Venue:
Le Meridien Luxor, Egypt (Starwoods Hotel and Resort Alliance).
Le Meridien Luxor is ideally located in the heart of the ancient city of Luxor. The hotel is approximately 1.5 km from the magnificent Luxor temple, and is directly situated on the bank of the breathtaking Nile.
The newly renovated Le Meridien Luxor offers a wide range of business, conference and leisure facilities. One can experience and enjoy the superb leisure center with an outdoor heated swimming pool (facing the Nile), or Health Club and gymnasium offering treatments for relaxation and wellness. Other recreation activities include sailing on the Nile, billiards, a nearby golf course, hot air balloons at sunrise/sunset over the Nile, and of course visiting the nearby sites and shopping in the Oriental bazaars.
The hotel is fully equipped with High speed Internet and Wi-Fi access, and all conference attendees will receive a 15% discount on internet usage. Location is 1.5 km from the train station, 10km from Luxor International Airport.
Accommodation in other hotels (under 5 min. walking distance) is also available thru our online registration system.
Social Program:
NanoTech Insight offers a fantastic social program. We encourage you to bring your family and friends to further enhance the social networking of this conference and to enjoy alongside you the splendors of Luxor. There is a possibility of arranging babysitters for those who wish to bring their young ones along, and discounted prices on social activities and meals for children. The accompanying persons program will consist of daily guided tours to the amazing sites of Luxor, and the entire conference will embark on an excursion together across the Nile to visit the incredible Valley of Kings. For those who are able to stay a few days following the conference, the post-conference tour is tentatively set to be on a Nile Cruise from Luxor to Aswan.
Speaker Spotlight - Article:
Nanotechnology and Precautionary Risk Management
Professor Roland Clift,
Centre for Environmental Strategy,
University of Surrey, GUILDFORD,
Surrey GU2 7XH, UK
The author is more sceptical than some about whether nanotechnology will really be revolutionary. However, the introduction of nanotechnology is essentially a new development. Therefore lessons can be learned from past developments. Nuclear power tells a particularly salutory story. In most industrial countries, nuclear power started out as another promised revolution; in the UK, it was heralded as &energy too cheap to measure". The economic promise obviously proved to be false. What is more interesting here, however, is why the nuclear sector lost public trust. In its early days, the industry message was "Trust us; we are the experts; we know that there are no risks to worry about". Then some very public accidents – the fire at the Windscale plant in the UK, Three Mile Island in the US and, most seriously, Chernobyl in the USSR (now Ukraine) – showed that there actually are risks to worry about. Once trust in an industry has been lost, it is extremely difficult to recover it. The nuclear industry has yet to regain public trust. There are some different and interesting counter-examples, which show how difficult it can be to predict public reaction to new scientific evidence.
The lessons for any new technology are that concerns over risk and doubts over benefits must be addressed honestly and transparently at an early stage in development. For nanotechnology, the UK Academies' working group identified three areas of concern:
1. Whether the benefits of using nanomaterials, particularly in applications outside the biomedical area, are real. To answer this concern it will be necessary to carry out some life cycle assessments of the production of nanomaterials, for example in applications in the energy sector. The question is whether the higher efficiency in converting or distributing energy is sufficient to offset the use of energy and other resources in making the nanomaterials. No such study appears to have been reported, but it is needed if mistakes in the development of nanotechnology are to be avoided.
2. What are the risks associated with the use of nanomaterials, and do they raise any issues which cannot be regulated by established approaches? Risk assessment and management involve two concerns: the intrinsic hazard, to human health and the environment, represented by the specific material; and the probability that the material actually reaches a living organism (such as a human being) known as the receptor. The risk can in principle be managed by limiting the hazard or blocking the exposure pathway. Nanomaterials present a particular problem in that there is almost no evidence on hazard. Nanoparticles can, in principle, enter the body by inhalation of air containing nanoparticles, ingestion in water or food, and by dermal exposure (via the skin) from preparations such as sun creams. There are reasons to suspect that, once in the body, nanoparticles (which are in the same size range as viruses) may be able to enter cells or cross the barrier between the blood and the brain. There is therefore a case for exercising a precautionary approach in regulating the use of nanomaterials, and for this to be conspicuous so as to avoid undermining trust in the technology.
3. Whether use of nanotechnology can open up applications which will be socially disruptive. This issue will not be explored in this contribution.
Nanomaterials represent a particularly difficult and therefore informative case for application of the precautionary approach. The difficulties start with our almost complete ignorance over the impacts of nanoparticles. While there is some evidence that they may be able to enter cells or the brain, we do not know the consequences of that penetration. So there is a need for toxicological testing. For chemicals, protocols for toxicological testing are accepted and established. This is not the case for nanomaterials. Whereas the properties, including the intrinsic hazard, of a chemical are determined by its composition, the properties of a nanomaterial also depend on its size, shape and surface condition – indeed, this is what determines that it is a nanomaterial. So the testing should presumably cover a range of particle sizes at least; this increases the time and cost of the tests. As an alternative to testing on whole animals or organisms, in vitro tests may be used to examine the response of cell cultures exposed to the material. The tests so far are too limited to be conclusive. The third general approach is via computer modelling – in silico testing, as it is known – to obtain Quantitative Structure-Activity Relationships (QSARs). This may be possible for nanomaterials, but it has yet to be explored seriously. In the absence not only of information but also of accepted approaches, it will be many years – possibly decades – before reliable assessment of the intrinsic hazards of nanomaterials is established and a sufficient body of data is built up.
The other source of information for regulating conventional chemicals comes from epidemiology: examining the mortality and health of groups of people who have received a higher level of exposure to a substance than the general population. Such groups are commonly workers in an industry using the chemical. In fact most people are already exposed, primarily by inhalation, to nanoparticles which occur naturally in the atmosphere from events such as volcanic eruptions or are produced by human devices, mainly vehicle engines and combustion plant. There is some evidence that exposure can cause impacts such as cardiovascular and respiratory disorders. However, the roles of particle shape and surface condition in these diseases are very uncertain, so it is difficult to give any guidance on what kind of nanoparticle is likely to be most hazardous. Analogies between asbestos fibres and nanotubes have been proposed, but it is also argued that the very different size makes the analogy false. Nobody really knows...
To sum up, nanoparticles represent a class of materials whose use must be regulated on a precautionary basis in the anticipation that their hazard properties will remain unknown – because toxicological evidence will not be available for a very long time and because, if the regulation is effective so that harm to health is avoided, epidemiological evidence will never be available.
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NanoTech Insight
LUXOR, March 10-17th 2007
http://www.nanoinsight.net
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