UNC-Greensboro making plans for nano-bio research center
BYLINE: Matt Evans
GREENSBORO -- Trustees of UNC-Greensboro will meet later this month to consider a plan to launch a new research center on campus, one that could offer a significant boost to their shared effort with N.C. A&T University to win $65 million in funding for a new Joint School for Nanoscience and Nanoengineering.
The university has already taken a major stride by hiring a well-known researcher, Yousef Haik, to head the proposed Center for Nanobioscience at UNCG. Haik holds several patents and has secured more than $4 million in research funding at Florida State University, where he is an associate professor of mechanical engineering, and at United Arab Emirates University, where he is chair of the Department of Mechanical Engineering.
Rosemary Wander, UNCG's associate provost for research, declined to comment on the new research center concept or how much such a plan would cost ahead of the planned presentation of the proposal to trustees on April 19.
Haik, answering questions via e-mail, said he envisions four primary areas of concentration for the new center at the intersection of nanotechnology and biotechnology.
Those areas include synthesizing new nanomaterials, using such materials to diagnose diseases, researching the relative safety or toxicity of nanomaterials for humans, and modeling nanoparticle production techniques to make them as efficient and affordable as possible.
Haik said the proposal to create the Joint School at UNCG and N.C. A&T was one of his primary motivations for making the move to the Triad this fall. The two campuses are seeking about $65 million through 2010 for the new school, which would be located at their shared Gateway University Research Park campus near I-40 and Lee Street.
That funding has not yet been secured, but Haik said the potential impact of such a project is significant and exciting.
"The anticipated number of scientists working for the same goal under the umbrella of the two schools will definitely create a huge impact on the science and economic development of the area," Haik said.
Haik said another strong lure to UNCG and the Triad was the activity surrounding commercialization of nanotechnology, and he said part of the Center for Nanobioscience's mission will be securing patents and transferring technologies with commercial potential out to industrial partners.
Local lure
Haik specifically noted the presence of the N.C. Nanoaccelerator, an incubator run by nanotech firm QuarTek in High Point. QuarTek CEO Reyad Sawafta said he was eager to recommend Haik for the job at UNCG and help convince him to come. The two scientists have known each other since 1996 and have published patents and authored research papers together.
"He has been extremely successful in licensing technologies to industry, including a number of patents licensed to companies like Johnson & Johnson, for example," Sawafta said. "He's an academic that has for a long time focused on commercialization, and he will bring that way of looking at things to the university."
Sawafta said Haik is already involved in the Triad's nanotechnology commercialization efforts through a company called NanoMeds, a medical diagnostics startup housed in the accelerator that originated from Haik's research and for which Haik is serving as chief technical officer.
That company is in the due diligence phase with investors, Sawafta said, seeking about $5 million in capital.
If UNCG trustees go ahead with plans for the new nano-bio center, it will surely help make the case for lawmakers to fund the Joint School, since the biological focus Haik describes would complement but not duplicate the mechanical engineering focus of N.C. A&T's existing Center for Advanced Materials and Smart Structures.
"I think having another leader in this field at UNCG focusing on applications of nanotechnology to life sciences will build confidence," Sawafta said.
If approved, the Center for Nanobioscience would join a robust pool of academic nanotechnology resources in the Triad.
In addition to the N.C. A&T center, Wake Forest University's Center for Nanotechnology is active in both research and commercialization, and Forsyth Technical Community College has the state's first nanotechnology associate's degree program for workforce development.