Nanotechnology grows into billion-dollar enterprise.

Small is big. Although " nanotechnology " has been an academic and media buzz word for several years, the federal government and private investors are now backing a host of initiatives with huge sums. In fiscal year 2005, federal agencies are slated to spend more than $1 billion on nanotechnology—defined as science and engineering at the scale of one billionth of a meter, or about the width of 10 water molecules. Private concerns are expected to ante up another $5 billion to $6 billion in the United States alone. Nanotech observers say that the streams of money are flowing from the unique nexus that forms nanoscience, where physics, chemistry, engineering, biology, computer science, and medicine mesh in unexpected ways. At conferences, microchip experts mingle with oncologists, who talk shop with materials engineers and toxicologists. Every corner of science, it seems, is going nano. " 'Interdisciplinary' is so overused, but this is the one field where it truly applies, " said Cherry Murray, Ph.D., senior vice president for physical sciences research at Lucent Technologies and Bell Labs, and the organizer of a recent nanotechnology meeting hosted by the National Academies. " We're just learning to talk to each other. " Developing a common language is the goal of the Bush Administration's National Nanotechnology Initiative, a multi-agency umbrella program to build, characterize, and understand nano-scale devices. The NNI lists medicine, manufacturing , materials science, information technology, energy, and environmental science as target beneficiaries. The program is slated to spend nearly $1 billion in fiscal year 2005, up from $464 million in 2001. The National Science Foundation gets $305 million in 2005, reflecting its broad mission across scientific disciplines. The Department of Defense will spend $276 million, while the Department of Energy gets $211 million. Much of the DOE budget funds five Nanoscale Science Research Centers, which are developing equipment and techniques available to researchers across nanotechnology disciplines. The National Institutes of Health, meanwhile, will spend $89 million on nanotechnology in 2005, including nearly $30 million for the National Cancer Institute's new Alliance for Nanotechnology in Cancer, a 5-year program announced in September. " We're talking about devices that can get into cells " to repair DNA, deliver smart-bomb drugs, or highlight a nascent malignancy, explained NCI Deputy Director Anna Barker, Ph.D., at the initiative's unveiling. Private industry is also rapidly investing in nanoscale science. Investment firms now list nanotechnology indices next to …