Day 1 :
Keynote Forum
Ashok Vaseashta
Institute for Advanced Sciences Convergence & Int’l Clean Water Institute
USA
Keynote: Risk Assessment, Safety and Sustainability by Design
Time : 10:00
Biography:
Prof. Vaseashta received a PhD from the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, VA in 1990. He currently serves as Vice Provost for Research at Molecular Science Research Center at the Claflin University and Strategic Advisor/Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Sciences Convergence and International Clean Water Institute at Norwich University Applied Research Institutes. Previously, he served as a Professor of Physics and Physical Sciences and Director of Research at the Nanomaterials Processing and Characterization Laboratories, Graduate Program in Physical Sciences at Marshall University. Concurrently, he holds/held a visiting/distinguished Professorship at the 3 Nano-SAE Research Centre, University of Bucharest, Romania; Academy of Sciences of Moldova, Chisinau, Moldova; and at the Helen and Martin Kimmel Center of Nanoscale Science at the Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel. In 2007-08, he was detailed as a William C. Foster fellow to the Bureau of International Security and Nonproliferation at the US Department of State working with the Office of Weapons of Mass Destruction and Terrorism and Foreign Consequence Management program.
Abstract:
From a technology standpoint, nanomaterials offer significant advantages due to their unique characteristics resulting from reduced dimensionality. Furthermore, advances in material synthesis have provided the means to control or even manipulate the transitional characteristics. Consequently, various “designer” materials with desired properties have recently been fabricated. Dual-use nature of technology coupled with the ability to functionalize with a plethora of biological configurations pose a significant safety and security concerns. Furthermore, a life cycle analysis of nanomaterials is largely unknown; and nanomaterials resulting from the laboratories, manufacture, and even incidental events pose serious concerns. Notwithstanding such concerns, the beneficial uses of nanomaterials offer a challenging scenario for policy-makers, researchers, and industrialists aliketo propose and implement viable alternatives for sustainable development in terms of keeping up with the latest technological innovations, social responsibility, and“being green”.With so much at stake, it is prudent to challenge conventional wisdom and investigate a new set of strategies that employa nexus of technological innovations, in conjunction with “acceptable” risk assessment and a strategic transformation in “use, reuse, and recycle” as effective management tools to address “design safety, security, and sustainability”. “Sustainability by design”employsstrategic transformations towards ensuring that humans andthe environment can simultaneously flourish on the Earth. Authors have investigated life-cycle-assessment based on the characterization, assessment, and management of risk to assess impacts on human and environmental health from a safety and sustainability standpoint.This presentation offers strategic solutions to a life cycle based approach to nanomaterials and foresight tools, already developed by the authors, to offer possible solutions pathways. The development of a nano-materials safety data sheet (n-MSDS) is being researched by the authors as one such transformation tool needed to provide guidance on the impact of engineered and incidental nanomaterials being introduced and recycled in our supply chain.
Keynote Forum
C D Montemagno
Ingenuity Lab, Canada
Keynote: Thinking small to define a big future
Time : 10:00-10:30
Biography:
Carlo Montemagno, PhD, is the former and founding Dean of the College of Engineering and Applied Science at the University of Cincinnati. Immediately prior, he was the Chair of the Department of Bioengineering and Associate Director of the California Nano Systems Institute as well as the Roy & Carol Doumani Professor of Biomedical Engineering at UCLA. Previous to Montemagno’s tenure with UCLA, he served as Associate Professor in the Department of Biological and Environmental Engineering at Cornell University. He earned his BS in Agricultural and Biological Engineering from Cornell (1980) and MS in Petroleum and Natural Gas Engineering from Penn State University (1990). After completing his undergraduate studies in 1980, he joined the United States Navy and served for ten years in several senior management positions as a Civil Engineering Corps Officer. In 1995, he earned his PhD in Civil Engineering and Geological Sciences from Notre Dame University. He then began his academic career as an Assistant Professor at Cornell University in the Department of Agricultural and Biological Engineering where he was one of the pioneers in the field of Nano-biotechnology.
Abstract:
The ability to use machines to manipulate matter a single molecule at a time renders many things possible that were impossible before. Living systems do this on a regular basis. The core challenge is how to transform a labile molecule that exists in a fragile living organism and to transfer that functionality into a stable system that is economically scalable. The most significant difficulties revolve around environmental stability and the inherent structural limitations of the molecule. Presented is the generic solution methodology used to solve these limiting challenges to produce a new class of materials and devices. Elements of the discussion will include the genetic engineering of active biological molecules into engineering building blocks and their assembly to introduce “metabolism” into engineered devices and materials ultimately synthesizing new classes of materials with advanced functionality that incorporates new intrinsic properties into the matter. Two exemplars will be presented. First we will elucidate the design, engineering and assembly of a complex closed system that uses a highly modified photosynthetic process to transform carbon waste into valuable drop-in specialty chemicals without any living organisms with commercially competitive economics. Secondly, we will present a new technology that stabilizes biological molecules maintaining their function for months at application relevant environmental conditions transitioning additive manufacturing from 3D space to a four-dimensional, functional space. Enabling the synthesis of a new class of printable “inks” that have stabilized and active biological molecules as integrated elements of synthesized polymer constructs to create a new class of materials that now includes biologic function as an intrinsic property. The next wave of technological progress will enable the manufacturing of a unique class of devices and materials that embeds complex functional behavior as an intrinsic property enabling emergent functionality at multiple length scales. These systems will actively interact with their local environment establishing a new capability that will impact solution generation across multiple societal sectors including health care, resource recovery, food production and environmental restoration.
Keynote Forum
Fang Xie
Imperial College London, UK
Keynote: Nanoscale engineering of metal nanostructures for early diagnosis of cancer
Time : 10:30-11:00
Biography:
Fang Xie was awarded her PhD in 2008 and was appointed as a Lecturer at Imperial College London in 2013. She is also Deputy Director for MSc in Advanced Materials in the Department of Materials. She has expertise in metal, semiconducting and oxide nano-materials synthesis and their applications in energy and life sciences. Her current research interests include plasmonic nanostructures for efficient light harvesting for solar cells and solar fuels, as well as in ultrasensitive biosensing and bioimaging applications. She has over 50 publications including 5 patents.
Abstract:
Early diagnosis plays an increasingly significant role in current clinical drive. Detection, identification, and quantification of low abundance biomarker proteins form a promising basis for early clinical diagnosis and offer a range of important medical benefits. Amplification of light from NIR fluorophores by coupling to metal nanostructures, i.e., metal induced fluorescence enhancement (MIFE), represents a promising strategy for dramatically improving the detection and quantification of low abundance biomarker proteins, and potentially increase already sensitive fluorescence based detection by up to three orders of magnitude. The amplification of the fluorescence system is based on interaction of the excited fluorophores with the surface plasmon resonance in metallic nanostructures. The enhanced fluorescence intensity due to the existence of metal nanostructures makes it possible to detect much lower levels of biomarkers tagged with fluorescence molecules either in sensing format or for tissue imaging. The first part of my talk will focus on some recent developments of plasmonic metal nanostructures by both “top-down” and “bottom up” methods. I will then discuss the prepared plasmonic nanostructures in the applications of biosensing.