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Nanotech group gives $55,000 to UCSB
[March 20, 2006]

Nanotech group gives $55,000 to UCSB


(Santa Barbara News-Press (CA) (KRT) Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge) Mar. 20--UCSB, which is rapidly becoming a big name in all things small, has been awarded a $55,000 grant to conduct a review of best practices for nanotechnology safety.

The International Council on Nanotechnology, a coalition of academic, industrial, governmental and civil society organizations administered by Rice University's Center for Biological and Environmental nanotechnology, made the gift.

"ICON is working to document current practices for identifying, managing and reducing risks -- across all life cycle phases -- for the production, handing, use and disposal of nanomaterials," Kristen Kulinowski, executive director of the Rice center, said in a statement.



"Our goal is to find the safest way to work with nanomaterials."

At UCSB, Patricia Holden, professor of environmental microbiology, will be the project leader.


Joining her will be Magali Delmas, assistant professor of business policy, Richard Applebaum, professor of sociology and global and international studies, and Barbara Herr Harthorn, a research anthropologist and co-director of UCSB's National Science Foundation Center for Nanotechnology in Society.

The multidisciplinary team will also partner with UCSB's Bren School of Environmental Management, according to Ms. Harthorn.

Work at UCSB will proceed in two stages.

In the first, a review of all "best practice" development efforts will be made.

In the second, researchers will interview a range of companies from around the globe to determine current best practices to identify standards for use in different parts of the world.

UCSB has been described as an "epicenter" of nanotechnology research.

In addition to the Center for Nanotechnology in Society, a $53 million California NanoSystems Institute is being built on campus.

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