Harvard's Kavli Institute aims to make nanoscience easy

The advance of engineering at extremely small scales has led to marvels of manufacturing, producing tiny transistors and circuits so close-packed that palm-sized devices now have the computing power and memory once held by room-sized machines. But two things this technology is not: Simple and cheap. What Intel can manage, a typical biologist cannot. Scientists studying the basic processes of life need equipment of a different kind, not so sophisticated but much easier to use.

You could call it nanotechnology for the rest of us, and it is central to the mission of the Kavli Institute for Bionano Science and Technology (KIBST) at Harvard University. As the Institute’s co-director, physicist David Weitz, explains, “We want to develop tools that can be used by everybody -- particularly non-experts -- that incorporate nanoscience and impact biology in a way that is accessible.” Rather than simply advancing nanotech to smaller and smaller scales, KIBST aims to make it practical for as many people as possible.

Read the full article on the Kavli Foundation website