What if harmful carbon dioxide emissions — the primary cause of global warming — could be stripped from the atmosphere and harnessed to create useful products, such as pharmaceuticals or renewable fuels?

Suppose newly developed chemotherapy drugs could target cancer cells with unparalleled precision, sparing healthy cells from damage and, consequently, patients from unpleasant side effects.

Although still generations away, such scientific breakthroughs are not as far-fetched as they might have once seemed. Faculty members and graduate students at the University of Connecticut are among those leading the way in this emerging area called nanotechnology.

A burgeoning field of promise viewed by some as the next technological frontier, nanotechnology is expected to bring about widespread changes in the world similar to the transformations that followed development of the computer in the 20th century.

Although still in its infancy, many researchers predict that nanotechnology will change everything from how we store information and treat illness to how we power our cars and heat our homes.

In short, scientists are looking for ways to use little things — so small they are unseen by the naked eye and observable only through the most advanced of microscopes — to change the world in a big way.

How small is the nano world? With a single nanometer equal to one-millionth of a millimeter, even a million nanometers reach only across the head of a pin.

In nanotechnology research, scientists are literally working on the atomic level, studying and manipulating matter on an ultra-small scale—typically measuring between a mere 1 and 100 nanometers.

A Promising Investment
In recent years, UConn has emerged as a leader in nanotechnology research in Connecticut, and “the state is starting to pay attention,” says Mehdi Anwar, associate dean for research and graduate education at the School of Engineering.

UConn’s investment in this cutting-edge technology is extensive, with more than 60 faculty plus dozens of graduate students and postdoctoral fellows involved in myriad research projects backed by more than $20 million in research grants and contracts.

Over the past fiscal year, the University devoted more than $1.5 million to support lab facilities and instrumentation essential to this work, and additional plans are in place to build or renovate research space for scientists and engineers in the coming years.

Such an investment, many believe, is well worth it.

“There’s a real buzz now about nanotechnology,” says Harris Marcus, professor of materials science and engineering and director of the University’s Institute of Materials Science, an interdisciplinary research center housing state-of-the-art equipment and laboratories where much of UConn’s nanotechnology studies are concentrated.

“And while the buzz may fade away, the research is going to be profound.”

The number of potential nanotechnology-based applications — in fields as diverse as manufacturing and military defense to medicine and renewable energy — is astounding.

UConn faculty in engineering, physics, chemistry and other sciences are coming together to carry out work that could someday lead to the development of cleaner energy sources, earlier diagnoses of disease and many other innovations that are only beginning to take shape.

Life-Altering Advances
Take, for instance, the potentially life-saving research performed by scientists at the UConn Health Center.

At the R.D. Berlin Center for Cell Analysis, Liisa Kuhn, assistant professor of oral rehabilitation, biomaterials and skeletal development, is exploring the possibility of using nanoparticles to deliver anti-cancer drugs directly — and more accurately than ever before — to tumors and lymph nodes.

Such a breakthrough would serve as a more effective treatment against the spread of cancer while reducing the toxic side effects for nearby healthy cells.

Equally as promising are the multi-disciplinary endeavors explored by UConn chemists such as Robert Birge, the Harold S. Schwenk Distinguished Chair of Chemistry in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.

Heavily dependent on nanotechnology and biomolecular electronics, Birge’s research includes a long-standing project dedicated to producing an artificial retina that could restore vision for people who have lost their sense of sight.

At the same time, Fotios Papadimitrakopoulos, a chemistry professor and the associate director of the Institute of Materials Science, has spent the past decade teamed up on a mission to construct special nano-sized sensors that could greatly improve quality of life for people with diabetes.

Working with fellow scientists in the Schools of Engineering and Pharmacy, Papadimitrakopoulos envisions these sensors — wireless and implanted in humans—capable of continuously monitoring metabolic processes, such as blood glucose levels.

For the more than 20 million Americans currently suffering from diabetes, such a sensor would prove to be indispensable.

Nanotechnology could even play a key role in protecting patient medical records, according to Eric Donkor, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering.

“If, for example, someone’s medical information must be transmitted from one doctor to another,” Donkor explains, “we want that information to be as secure as we can make it.”

Donkor’s research focuses in part on building tiny semi-conductor particles — with dimensions of only 10 to 20 nanometers — into networks of special fibers, similar to fiber optic cable.

These fibers would transmit and process information using light—remarkably, a single photon at a time. Communicating confidential medical, governmental, or business data utilizing this fundamental, indivisible particle of light, Donkor says, “is the secret to securing information.”

In the Right Direction
“Nanotechnology will make a fundamental change in the way we live and work,” says UConn chemistry professor Challa Vijaya Kumar, who compares the advent of nanotechnology to the dawn of the Stone Age, when humans first learned to make and use tools.

In considering the developments that could emerge as nanotechnology research efforts intensify, Kumar is optimistic about the next “leap in our civilization.”

He envisions nanorobots that flow through the bloodstream, repairing damaged cells, and nanomaterials 100 times stronger than steel.

His own research involves removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and converting it into practical products using nanocatalysts.

All this, he says, is the “kind of sophistication [that] is impossible with the current technology.” Nanotechnology, however, could make it a reality.

Still other studies, even in the early stages of development, offer a glimpse into a wealth of possible future benefits.

Bahram Javidi, Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering, and his team have developed a novel way to view and recognize different bacteria species using a special imaging system that measures how nanoorganisms interact with light.

Unlike the invasive — and time-consuming — processes currently used to identify such organisms, this technique not only leaves the cell undamaged but also provides real-time results.

Having the ability to distinguish microorganisms using this method could eventually allow scientists to automate the monitoring of water supplies for harmful pathogens or to identify, detect and track pandemics such as avian flu far more quickly than previously possible.

“What is good is that the devices, such as lasers and detectors, needed to make these instruments and these discoveries are all moving in the right direction,” Javidi says.

“They are all becoming more available in the domains where we need them.”

UConn’s Institute of Materials Science is the place where sophisticated microscopes and other advanced lab equipment make it possible today for scientists to probe, evaluate and manipulate materials on the nano level.

This high-tech instrumentation is accessible to University faculty and graduate students engaged in cutting-edge studies of materials science and engineering, including nanotechnology.

“Smaller and smaller is where everything is going,” says Marcus, the Institute’s longtime director.

“This instrumentation is absolutely necessary to doing nanotechnology research.”

So in demand are the Institute’s research facilities that about 40 companies located across the Northeast — from the manufacturing, pharmaceutical, chemical and even sporting goods industries — have signed up as members of the Institute in order to attain the right to use its coveted technology.

“They have problems, and they come to us to leverage our expertise,” explains Brian Huey, assistant professor of chemical materials and biomolecular engineering, who came to UConn in 2003 from the National Institute of Standards Technology in Washington, D.C., to bolster UConn’s nanotechnology efforts.

Since his arrival, UConn has added two atomic force microscopes — the core of advanced nanotechnology research — and Huey’s staff has trained numerous faculty and graduate students to use the instruments.

A Remarkable Opportunity
By the year 2014, Connecticut’s Office of Workforce Competitiveness estimates more than 25,000 workers in the state of Connecticut will produce nanotechnology-enabled applications and manufactured goods and worldwide sales of products incorporating nanotechnology are predicted to amount to $2.9 trillion in revenue.

Among UConn faculty involved in nanotechnology, all believe collaboration is necessary to make such predictions a reality. “It is all about partnership, partnership, partnership,” says associate dean Anwar.

“This is a University-wide effort. It is not concentrated in one department. We need to involve each and every discipline to get something done. When we bring partners together, it will all start to make sense.”

Even beyond the University, that message seems to be getting across. The state of Connecticut, through the Connecticut Office of Workplace Competitiveness and the Connecticut Center for Advanced Technology is taking steps to fund new projects and further collaboration between UConn researchers and Connecticut businesses.

“It’s all about bringing industry and the university researchers closer together,” says Deb Santy, director of the Small Business Innovation Research program at the Connecticut Center for Advanced Technology.

“Businesses…go to the universities to see what they are doing in nanotechnology and see what they are willing to share with industry.”

In addition, scientists and state policymakers are looking to establish a Connecticut Center for Nanoscale Sciences, backed by a partnership between UConn, Yale University, and the state and federal governments.

The center would encourage collaboration between scientists at both universities as well as a sharing of the high-priced equipment needed for the research.

And there is no time to lose.

“Nanotechnology really is the future,” says Donkor. “If minds meet together, if we can find a niche and be prominent in that area ahead of time, I think that is critical.”