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M.S. Jhon (U.S.A.)
Carnegie Mellon University
mj3a@andrew.cmu.edu

J.W. Lee (Korea)
Hanyang University
jowon@hanyang.ac.kr

The 15^th U.S.-Korea Forum on Nanotechnology:

Nanomedicine Focusing on Single Cell Level and Internet of
Things (IoT) including Nanosensors

Kintex, Gyeonggi-do, Korea
 

Adopted on July 13, 2018

The first decade of the 21^st century has been flourished by the advent of nanotechnology convergence and its application in a broad spectrum of science and technology areas along with interdisciplinary research initiatives to achieve rapid advancement toward 4^th industrial revolution. To further promote development of new technologies, the United States (National Science Foundation, NSF) and Korea (Ministry of Science and ICT, MSIT) have been encouraging a common platform for the exchange of ideas and research collaboration in nanotechnology through these Forums, set up by the recommendations made by the Korea-US joint committee on Scientific and Technological Cooperation, held on October 31, 2002 in Seoul, Korea.

Ever since then, our Forums have been extremely successful, thriving over a decade of their organization history and promoting tremendous development in nanotechnology. These Forums have been a testimony to the transformative power of identifying a concept or trend and laying out a vision at the synergistic confluence of diverse scientific research areas.  Our Forums have successfully provided a common platform for effective networking between research communities and industries in both countries by identifying emerging areas in nanotechnology which generate huge impact. This is evident from major collaboration initiatives between US and Korea, established via our Forums. Organizing the Forums has significantly expedited the generation of cutting edge technologies for the thrust areas in both countries.  These Forums have been publicized through Carnegie Mellon website: http://www.cmu.edu/nanotechnology -forum/.

With this mission, we established the 1^st US-Korea Forum on Nanotechnology, via NSF funding, on October 14^th -18^th  of 2003, in Seoul. As the Korean counterpart to NSF, participation was overseen and funded by MSIT. The topics in the subsequent Forums were recommended by the advisory committee members depending on the need of both countries at that time, and the locations of these Forums have alternated between Korea and the US. We organized the 2^nd Forum, on nanomanufacturing research and the development of educational programs covering the field of nanotechnology. The 3^rd Forum focused on active devices and systems research, unlike the passive systems studied during the first two Forums. We held the 4^th Forum, where the focus was on the sustainable nano energy with emphasis on the design and characterization of materials as well as devices and systems for energy applications. The 5^th Forum focused on the emerging area of nano-biotechnology emphasizing novel nano-biomaterials, instrumentation technologies, and integrated systems for overcoming critical challenges in biomedicine and delivery of healthcare, as well as their environmental, health & safety (EHS), and toxicity issues. The 6^th Forum dealt with nano-electronics with emphasis on fundamentals as well as integration with applications including convergence technology with biotechnology. The 7th Forum oversaw discussions ranging in nanotechnology convergence over current and future energy technologies to provide environmentally friendly solutions to the crippling challenges facing the energy sector. These seven Forums culminated in a seamless developmental and feedback process documenting the advent of nanotechnology convergence in broad spectrum of science and technology areas, for the first decade of the 21^st century (NANO1). The 8^th Forum in 2011, on nanotechnology convergence in sustainability, heralded new horizons in nanotechnology for the next decade (NANO2) by addressing critical problems faced by an ever increasing global population, with an emphasis on environmentally friendly technologies for the future on nanotechnology for sustainability, focusing on water reuse and desalination, greenhouse gas capture and conversion, and sustainable natural resources. The 9^th Forum focused on channeling nanotechnology to the masses to responsibly address broad societal challenges such as nanoscience fundamentals, sustainability, and state-of-the-art applications for the new generation of nanotechnology products. The 10^th Forum focused on laying out a roadmap for a new generation of nanotechnological products and processes. The 11^th Forum focused on a new paradigm in nanomanufacturing, nanocomposite, and nanoinformatics. This Forum provides an opportunity to realize the potential of nanotechnology through the development of innovative and sustainable nanomanufacturing technologies for producing novel strong, light and smart nanocomposites and their management via nanoinformatics which will likely lead to paradigm shifting next generation enhanced performance of products in a broad range of existing industries including aerospace, automotive, energy, environmental remediation, information, and power industries as well as development of new industries. The 12^th Forum focused on laying out a roadmap for a new paradigm in nanoscience-convergence in 2-D materials and for water purification via exploring improvements to technological tools for the application of nanotechnology and functional and novel nanomaterials to water-related topics. The 13^th Forum focused on a new paradigm in nanoscience- convergence in brain-inspired (neuromorphic) computing and water & energy. The 14^th Forum focused on laying out a roadmap for a new paradigm in nanoscience-convergence in ` including nanosensorss and neuromorphic computing.

The present 15^th Forum was held at Kintex, Gyeonggi-do, Korea on July 12&13, 2018, and 126 eminent scientists and policy makers in the field of nanotechnology (including 40 presenters) attended. This Forum focused on realizing the promise of nanotechnology through the development of novel IoT devices & nanosensorss and nanomedicine focusing on single cell level. Since the nanosenor for IoT devices are significant component in 4th industrial revolution, we continued the topic on nanosensors for IoT devices from last year. Furthermore, to increase publicity, 15^th Forum was planned as a satellite session of NanoKorea 2018 (http://sympo.nanokorea.or.kr/2018) for the first time.

To further explore discussions on nanotechnology convergence, we intend to organize the 16th Forum sometime in September or October, 2019 to be held at University of California, San Diego (UCSD), USA. The suggested topics include two emerging themes: nanomedicine focusing on single cell level as well as improving human sensorial capabilities related to cognition. We believe that the continuation of the nanomedicine area during the 16^th forum will further promote collaboration between scientists in US and Korea and will make concrete collaboration topics and teams. This consecutive-year discussion on the same topics have been previously done for neuromorphic computing (13^th and 14^th forum) and IoT including nanosensors (14^th and 15^th), and had great success.

The followings are recommendations made by the two subgroups during this Forum:

Sub-group 1: Nanomedicine focusing on single cell level

Objective: to come up with the major challenges and corresponding recommendation for nanomedicine for the future

The proposed topics for collaboration will be completed during the upcoming Forum. At this moment, we propose 2 general topics. 1) early detection of diseases 2) precision nanomedicine.

Challenges

• Long-term fate for the newly developed materials (distribution in space and time) & how to integrate already-developed nano-materials into applications synergistically (instead of creating new materials)
• The niche of nanomaterials (is it better to use nanomaterial?)
• Changing the general paradigm of medical practice (how to incorporate evolutionary biology into practice). What is the specific power that nanomaterial uniquely provide us?
• Precisely monitoring patients will enable preventative medicine
• Personalized medicine – Nanomedicine: the problem of drugs is identified first, and then it is mitigated later on.  We should start with clinical problems from the beginning of the study design
• Batch-to-batch consistency validation. We need to bring clinicians in the field into the meeting. Bring people worry about regulation
• Safer biomaterial is needed
• Being able to target something that goes

Discussions

• We tend to build a rocket to hit the target accurately. Instead, we need to identify what to avoid (e.g., dose-limiting toxicity of drug)
• Switching a viewpoint from “cure cancer” to “care cancer”
•  Cancer case: early detection, and manage the quality of life for patients

• If we can detect cancer early, mortality reduces dramatically
  

  o   Medical amended with nanotechnology
• Multiplexing, amplification, higher sensitivity, improved efficiency, lowering toxicity, scalability, better regulation of nanomaterials
• Anti-microbial community (in addition to eukaryotic cells)
• Approachability, affordability (cost)
• What is the benefit that nanotechnology can provide to pharma industry (with already developed knowledge)?
• Loading the effective drug into nano-particle-> identify the  specific target where the drug is released
• Nanotechnology field doesn’t necessarily have the bandwidth to develop a new drug (in contrast to pharma industry, regulatory organization etc). Instead, we should ask the right question to tackle appropriate problems to solve with nanotechnology (analog to “chemical biology” field has achieved)
• Invite people with bigger view on this field. Monitoring of cells’ structure early before they become cancerous (or diseased, pathological)
• We should not limit our discussion to nanoparticles only. There are other nano-scale features with great potential
• “A hammer and a nail” analogy
• We need to focus on acute disease more (physician’s opinion)- as a low hanging fruit. Systematic delivery of nanoparticle is problematic. Local delivery of nanoparticles might be more effective.
• How to control the effect of nanoparticle more precisely
• Incorporating additional means (optical, acoustic, radiational, thermal, magnetic)
• Biodistribution and fate of nanoparticles are important. But is there a clear guideline for the translation of nanomedicine?-short answer: No. Disease- dependent. The more complex nanomedicine production process gets, the harder to translate (clinical trial). We should simplify the manufacturing process. Use your nanoparticles to learn new biology.
• When nanoparticle can be the vector for CRISPR-Cas9
• There are 5 companies pursuing that route in San Francisco. (improving efficiency)
• Nanomedicine should be ready for new advanced therapy
• From passive delivery to active delivery (multi-nano platforms)

• For individual variation, rodent models are not enough. Are we ready to move on to personalized therapy?
• Understanding underlining biology of biological systems being used to develop/evaluate nanomaterials
• Genetics alone cannot reflect physiological complexity as whole (biological model systems-e.g., genetically modified mice)
• Importance of collaborations with people with different backgrounds. Look for support.
• Three core groups for successful collaboration: (1) experts to provide bio-content, (2)clinicians and (3)nanotechnology experts
• Move engineering labs into clinic/biological labs (to be surrounded by biologists and clinical-scientists). Being outside of your comfort zone.
  
• Collaborating at the dean-level (medicine-engineering in close proximity)
  
•  UCSD-IEM (Institute of engineering in medicine)
• Recommendation: more conference like this to bring people with diverse background
• Collaboration culture in Korea Joint-conference (students) among departments of engineering and medicine. A nanomedicine president with MD
• Integration within the university is important
• Source of MONEY for collaborations. Funding in US: NIH is hypothesis-driven funding mechanism. NSF-NIH collaboration might not be necessary (people apply to both independently)
• Broadcast the promises that nanotechnology can provide (instead of tearing down other fields) to initiating collaborations
  

• Integration of trainees (postdocs and students) into the conference
• Monthly online conferences/discussion board
• Importance of GMP production for clinical translation of nanomedicine
• $2~3 million for new drug development (phase 1) is required even before the GMP clearance
• EU utilizes CMO or CDMO

Sub-group 2: IoT including nanosensorss

The IOT and nano sensors group agreed on the need to have the following proposed topics for collaboration focused on:

1. Printed sensor system (including electronics and power) - Byun (Kangwon), Liu (Harvard), Ham (Harvard), Busnaina (Northeastern), Wang (UCSD)
2. Wearable durable and reliable sensors and devices including functional fabrics - Lee (SKKU), Wang (UCSD)
3. An array of chemical and biosensors (it could be hundreds or more) platform and compact radiation sensors - Lee (KIST), Yoon (Korea). Liu/Ham (Harvard), Busnaina (Northeastern)
4. Make chemical sensors more specific - Yoon (Korea.), Busnaina (Northeastern)
5.  Low power sensors, wearable high energy density batteries and Self powered sensors utilizing energy harvesting - Liu (Wisconsin), Park (KIMS), Park (Align Tech), Cho (KAIST)
6. Secure communications and including secure hardware - Kim (Wisconsin), Baek (KIST)
7.  Fully integrated sensors system monolithically or system on a chip (including sensors element, microcontroller, memory, communication, power) - Towe (Carnegie Mellon), Lee (KIST), Liu/Ham (Harvard), Busnaina (Northeastern)
8. Focus on health care based sensors and environmental sensors (Chem or Bio) – Byun (Kangwon)
9.  Functional packaging of sensors including microfluidics, membranes, etc. - Cho (KAIST)
10. Sensor system miniaturization - Yu (Kangwon)
11. Reusable or recyclable sensors.
12. Non-invasive biosensors for health.  Lee (SKKU), Kim (SNU), Wang (UCSD)