The West Virginia University WVNano initiative is seeking additional nanotechnology research topics from the Mountain State’s medical, scientific and entrepreneurial communities to keep the program on a trajectory for continued nationally and internationally recognized research results.

Researchers, business leaders, medical researchers/practitioners, entrepreneurs and other interested individuals from on and off the WVU campus are invited to attend specially-organized information-gathering events to speak out about research possibilities they would like to see explored under the WVNano umbrella.

The special “town hall” meetings on nanotechnology, which will all occur in the Barnette Room of the WVU Erickson Alumni Center Morgantown, are set for:

• 2 – 5 p.m. Monday, Feb. 7 – Nanomaterials for Energy Applications

• 11 a.m. – 2 p.m. Monday, Feb. 14 – Interactions Between Nanomaterials and Biological Systems (including nanomedicine, nanotoxicity and imaging)

• 2 – 5 p.m. Monday, Feb. 14 – Policy, Education, Ethics and Communications

To register for one of the sessions, visit: http://simpleforms.scripts.wvu.edu/wvnano/BrainstormRegistry/.

WVNano director Diandra Leslie-Pelecky said that the sessions are open to all WVU faculty members, as well as researchers and officials from national laboratories and private industry.

“These are brainstorming sessions that will help us strategically plan for an even brighter future for nano research that can be a key generator of future economic development,” she said.

The three topics of the sessions represent areas in which WVU already has a strong core of researchers and potential for national leadership. The sessions will focus on the unique advantages of WVU and bring together researchers who may be unfamiliar to each other. The end product will form the basis for a strategic long-term plan.

“Our goal”, Leslie-Pelecky said, “is to develop programs that can provide sustained excellence in these areas: national leadership and recognition, as well as the opportunity to prepare graduate students for truly interdisciplinary research.”

Nanoscience is the science of the extremely tiny – not as small as atoms or molecules, but much smaller than anything that can be seen with the naked eye. At “nanoscales,” materials possess very different properties that give them unique abilities. Nanoscale science and engineering is the attempt to learn about and use those special properties in the creation of novel products for a range of different industries.

WVNano researchers span a variety of specialties, ranging from engineering and computer science to biology, chemistry, physics, and the medical sciences. Key research projects under way at WVU include work to find coatings for surgical implants that fight infections; single-molecule electronic switches; separation techniques for characterization of biomolecular samples for forensic analysis; and integrated chemical detection and analysis using “lab-on-a-chip” technology.

WVNano was organized in 2005 and, since 2006, has been funded by the National Science Foundation, the WVU Research Corporation and the WV Higher Education Policy Commission’s Division of Science and Research.

The WVNano shared research facilities at WVU include a state-of-the-art cleanroom, where experiments occur in a protected environment, and equipment specifically designed to fabricate and measure the properties of nanoscale devices. Access to the shared research facilities is available to all WVU faculty and students, as well as outside users from other institution, government laboratories and industries.

-WVU-

01/31/11

Check http://wvutoday.wvu.edudaily for the latest news from the University. Follow @WVUToday on Twitter.

CONTACT: Lisa Sharpe 304 293 6872