Imagine thousands of tiny submarines coursing through your bloodstream - torpedoing viruses, cancer cells and any other undesirables.

That is what some scientists see for the future of nanotechnology.

Imagine northern Nevada as a development center for such technology. That is what some business people see for the region''s future.

Both might appear like outlandish prospects to some, but just as scientists seek to understand the complexities of nanoscience, so do investors and business leaders seek to nurture such developments in northern Nevada.

Nanotechnology gives scientists the ability to create new materials, atom by atom. With increasingly more powerful microscopes, scientists can see molecules mere nanometers - or billionths of a meter - in size (a pinhead is one million nanometers across). The field intertwines nearly all fields of science.

With the ability to see such particles, scientists - including staff at the University of Nevada, Reno - are building new materials with specific properties designed on the nanometer level.

"It is going to be huge - it is going to be immense," said Christine Peterson, president of Foresight Institute, a Palo Alto, Calif.-based non-profit, education organization.

Peterson and other nanotechnology specialists stress that while advanced projects such as nanomachines that build themselves are possible, such ambitious projects are a long way off.

In the meantime, stronger industrial materials and drug delivery systems built molecule by molecule are likely soon to hit the market.

Current nanotechnology often is compared with transistor technology of the late 1940s, as are the rewards for becoming a hotbed of development.

"San Jose and Santa Clara became some of the most wealth-creating geopolitical domains in the earth''s history," said Robb Smith, a partner in Nevada Ventures LP, which donated $300,000 to UNR to study nanoscience. "If UNR had the opportunity to become a research institution in 1947, Reno would be a much different place today.

"The question is, ''Do we want to let that pass us by again?'' "
Making the university competitive in nanotechnology research is the first step in defining the region as nano-friendly, Smithsaid."Paradigm shifts, in the true sense of the word, don''t come along often," he said. "If you own a single niche in one of these areas in nanoscience, it can revolutionize the quality of life for the people in that geographical area."

Some prospects for nanotechnology nearly go beyond paradigm shifts, namely those put forth by author K. Eric Drexler, founder of Foresight

Institute
The most optimistic scenarios include: postponed aging by repairing human cells one by one; unbound computer power from improved microchip performance; reduced global warming by cleaning greenhouse gases out of the atmosphere with nanoparticles; and pesticides that kill insects without harmful by products.

Smith said he hopes someday to have the opportunity to provide venture capital to nanotechnology start-ups in northern Nevada that spin off of research at the university. But he acknowledges that day is a long way off.

Investors ready
Smith said three years were spent looking for an appropriate research field at the university to donate money to before settling on nanotechnology.

"It is futile for Nevada''s institutions to try to compete with an established information technology," Smith said. "That game has come, gone and been won. We looked for a field where nobody has a lead yet."

Nevada Ventures, Smith''s firm, does not have investments in any nanotechnology companies.

"We are investing in Nevada''s ability to be a player in nanoscience over the long run," Smith said. "It is philanthropic."

The White House, too, is investing in nanoscience, appropriating more than $600 million last year to the National Nanoscience Initiative started by former President Bill Clinton.

On the medical front, researchers at Virginia Polytechnic Institute are developing magnetic nanofluids.

"Nanotechnology is mostly just chemistry, and most people are extremely bored with chemistry."

(Courtesy: Reno Gazette-Journal).