Title of Effective Practice: - California Postsecondary Education ...

Direct Connection to Policy Area 4 of The Illinois Commitment
Northwestern University Leads Illinois into the Nanotechnology Revolution
Northwestern University
What issue or need is addressed by the effective practice?
By building the Midwest’s leading research and teaching enterprise in the emerging field of Nanotechnology,
Northwestern University is helping Illinois develop and sustain growth in virtually all sectors of the State’s
economy, including energy, security, healthcare, and transportation.
The field of Nanotechnology – research and development at the Nanoscale (i.e., the level of individual atoms,
molecules, and supramolecular structures – has emerged as the strategic and dominant technological movement
in the United States and is widely expected to produce in the next several decades a “revolution” in new goods
and services, comparable to those revolutions in microelectronics/computers in the 1980s and biotechnology in
the 1990s. Much as the Silicon Valley (California) and Route 128 (Massachusetts) were the centers of the earlier
technology booms, states and municipalities are vying to be the locus for Nanotechnology research. In his 2003
State of the State address, Governor Rod Blagojevich declared that Illinois “is the center of the Nanotechnology
universe.” His assertion is based largely on the strength of its research institutions, led by Northwestern
University’s strategic investments in this field and its partnerships with other research institutions, notably
Argonne National Laboratory, but also the University of Chicago, the University of Illinois, and Purdue
University.
Description of the effective practice:
• Northwestern University has developed a strong teaching and research faculty in Nanotechnology across a
range of disciplines, building on strong departments in chemistry, material sciences, engineering, and
medicine, and emphasizing interdisciplinarity as a core strategy to achieve research breakthroughs. At
Northwestern, for example, engineers work with medical doctors, chemists work with biologists and
researchers in other fields in university-wide research centers, and in consortia with other universities.
• Northwestern University recruits and retains top researchers in Nanotechnology. Among many notable
Nanotechnology researchers at Northwestern is Chad A. Mirkin, the current Director of the University’s
International Institute for Technology. Mirkin received the first NIH Pioneer Award in 2004 for his
contributions to biomedical research, and was a 2002 recipient of the Feynman Prize in Nanotechnology, the
Sackler Prize in the Physical Sciences, the ACS Nobel Laureate Signature Award, and the Discoverer 2000
Innovation of the Year Award. Mark A. Ratner was the recipient of the Feynman Prize in 2001. Samuel I.
Stupp, Director of the Institute for Nanobiotechnology and Medicine (IBNAM), chaired the review of the
National Nanotechnology Initiative at the request of the White House Economic Council, and is the recipient
of many awards, including the 2005 American Chemical Society Award in Polymer Chemistry. Young
faculty members with appointments across multiple university research centers include Mark Hersam, who
was honored by President Bush on July 27 with the 2006 Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and
Engineers (PECASE).
• Northwestern built the first academic facility in the nation dedicated exclusively to Nanotechnology: the $40
million, 44,000-square foot Center for Nanofabrication and Molecular Self-Assembly (IBNAM) on the
Evanston campus. Northwestern also devoted two floors of its new, $200-million, Robert H. Lurie Medical
Research Center, in Chicago, for use by IBNAM.
• Northwestern was awarded one the first four national Nanotechnology research centers funded by the
National Science Foundation (NSF), as part of the national Nanotechnology Initiative developed by the
Clinton Administration, renewed when the Bush Administration took office.
How does this practice achieve sustainability?
• Business development: Northwestern University researchers have spun off nine new Illinois-based firms in
Nanotechnology. Northwestern’s NSF-funded Nanoscale Science and Engineering Center (NSEC) alone
counts over 30 industrial partners, including many of the leading industrial firms in Illinois. IBNAM works
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