Very Small Business

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C-Sixty's hypothesis is that buckyballs offer a master-key approach, functioning as a universal molecule that can be, in a sense, weaponized to attack any enzyme or receptor that plays a role in a disease's development. C-Sixty is assembling libraries of new buckyball-based molecules that it will test for potential therapeutic value. Early next year, it will conduct human trials of fullerene-based drugs for hiv and Lou Gehrig's disease. With about one-tenth the toxicity of the current hiv drug cocktails, the company's molecule targets new strains of the constantly mutating virus that are no longer susceptible to treatment. In the case of Lou Gehrig's disease, a degenerative nerve illness, the drug prevents or repairs neurological damage. C-Sixty has no revenue yet but will soon announce a partnership with "one of the top three pharmaceutical companies," says its president, Uri Sagman.

Other researchers are building nanoinventions so small that they can slip inside diseased cells and halt their development. Dr. James Baker, head of the University of Michigan's Center for Biologic Nanotechnology, is developing nanoscale molecules called dendrimers to target cancer cells. He says that "nanotechnology gives us a totally new set of tools to diagnose and treat disease," including an ability to eliminate cells before they become cancerous.

Baker and his team created a company called NanoBio. An $11 million Pentagon grant allowed the team to develop a cream that can penetrate and kill infectious microbes, everything from the fungus that grows on toenails to flu viruses to anthrax spores. The military version, called NanoDefend, is a liquid designed to decontaminate clothing and surfaces that have come into contact with anthrax, Ebola or smallpox. A creamy gel or goop, called NanoGreen, can be used by the military to decontaminate skin — and may eventually have topical and vaginal applications for consumers, according to NanoBio ceo Ted Annis. The firm, which hopes to partner with existing companies, is preparing to submit seven products to the fda for approval, a process that takes several years.

Some companies will simply help common drugs work more efficiently. Elan Drug Delivery, located in King of Prussia, Pa., pulverizes existing drugs to a size that maximizes the body's ability to absorb them. Naproxen sodium, a pain medication found in products such as Aleve, can take as long as two hours to exert its pain-relieving effect. Nano Systems has developed a crystal version of naproxen, still in clinical development, that works in 15 to 20 minutes. "Using NanoCrystals has not made naproxen a better drug"--just seven to eight times as fast as the commercial product, says Larry Sternson, president of drug delivery at Elan, the Dublin-based drugmaker that is the parent company of Elan Drug Delivery.

Detection and analysis are also enhanced by small technology that is not strictly nano-scale. MesoSystems, a young but profitable firm, sells to fire departments handheld devices that collect biological particles 0.5 to 10 microns across — anthrax, for one — and preserve them in a liquid for identification. MesoSystems supplies Lockheed Martin with an air sampler it uses in its Biomail Solutions product, a biohazard detector in field testing at some federal agencies. MesoSystems made about $250,000 last year on revenues of $7 million and this year hopes to gross more than $10 million.

Cleaner Energy
As an alternative to fossil fuel, everyone loves hydrogen fuel cells, which produce clean energy out of hydrogen and oxygen. But hydrogen, while abundant in the air, isn't widely available in refined form. And machines that run on hydrogen are equally scarce. Researchers at the Tokyo Institute of Technology have been working on the first problem, automakers on the second. The Tokyo group has developed a way to "crack" hydrogen, using a mesh of thin carbon fibers studded with molecules of a nickel compound. The filter breaks down natural gas into carbon and hydrogen that is pure enough for use in fuel cells.

Another impediment is the cost and supply of the platinum particles that catalyze, or kick off, the process. Think of them almost as matchmakers, encouraging every oxygen atom to mate with two hydrogens, releasing valuable energy with each reaction. That is the heart of the fuel cell.

Because of the current size of these catalyst particles, about 10 nm, and their tendency to clump together, platinum is not used efficiently. The world's entire annual output of platinum would not meet the demand if fuel cells were used by only 10% of cars produced worldwide. Hydrocarbon Technologies — which is owned by Headwaters, an alternative-energy company based in Draper, Utah — says it has found a way to create nanoscale platinum particles that won't clump together and slow down the process, as current ones do. The new particles are expected to keep fuel cells running in a stable, efficient manner and stretch the platinum supply. Tim Harper, founder of CMP-Cientifica, says these particles show how "nanotechnology can make previously uneconomic processes viable" for businesses.