The focus of this theme is the study, design and fabrication of nanoscale structures and devices for the diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of diseases and genetic disorders. Advanced health technologies will be key drivers of the technological development.

Nanomedical nanostructures will include: in-situ nanodevices for drug delivery; nanoparticles for selected cell destruction (e.g., hyperthermia in cancer treatment), imaging and diagnostic; biochip platforms for bio-molecular recognition applied to genetic disease diagnosis; DNA, protein and cell-chips; micro and nano-electrodes for neural and cortical implants; neuroelectronics; new biomedical imaging technologies (miniaturized NMR, MRI); and improved MEG and MCG systems.

This theme has a strong societal impact, and will stem from interdisciplinary research between existing teams of engineers, biologists, physicists, physicians, chemists, and others. A strong connection to Bioengineering Departments and Medical Schools of major Universities, as well as to Companies operating in the Biotech, Medical and Pharmaceutical fields will ensure that the research carried out at the INL has impact both in the education and in the industry.

The development of micro- and nanosystems for environment monitoring and security and food quality control incorporates at a first stage nanotransducer design and fabrication. These transducers will include micro- and nanoelectromechanical systems (MEMS and NEMS), and advanced single/few molecule transducers (based on spintronic, photonic, and electronic detection principles). These transducers will include necessarily chemically and biologically sensitive layers for specific detection of chemical and biochemical signals.

Finally this research theme will involve developing better packaging and healthier foods and innovative point-of-care micro and nanosystems targeted at environmental quality analysis (air, water, and soil), as well as at conventional and nuclear explosives and other bioterrosim detection. These are fields of great societal concern and enormous economical impact. Developments in these research fields can be quickly brought into production and into the market.

The focus of this area will be the development of technologies and devices in the “beyond CMOS” area, focusing on the development of electronic devices (semiconductor-, magnetic-, or photonic-based) that incorporate novel materials, and unconventional structures, for application in non-commodity products, mostly in the sensor application field.

The combination of electronics, photonics and nanoscale materials, is an emerging area which presents a unique opportunity for the research community to influence the future of technology. Fabrication of 2D and 3D photonic crystals cannot not only allow the manipulation of light, but also contribute to design novel optical fibers, lasers, etc, with new sensing capabilities. These novel devices will include merging various state-of-the-art device and sensor technologies (spintronics, NEMS and MEMS, micro- and nanofludics, optical and semiconductor based devices) in multifunctional microsystems and lab-on-chip platforms targeted at the above defined strategic themes.

In a first stage, the nanoelectronic devices will support applications in biotechnology and medicine, as well as in environmental and food monitoring. In a second stage, it is envisaged that the nanoelectronic modules developed can be commercialized as such for incorporation in other products, thus establishing the basis for start-ups seeded by INL.

INL considers strategic an activity of basic bule-sky-research on nano-machines and micro-robotics. Nanomachines are systems that can have a combination of mechanical, sensorial, electronic, computational and communication with a size of at most a few tens of micron.

This area of activity will encompass microfabricated NEMS structures (such as nanoactuactors, nanosensors, nano-fuel cells) targeted at single/few molecule detection and/or manipulation. The area also covers the design, synthesis and operation of molecular objects (using self assembly, biomimetic chemistry), and of instruments required to interact with these single molecule structures (such as miniaturized magnetic and optical tweezers).

Externally modified self-assembly will be also a key point toward the fabrication of devices using nanoparticles as building blocks. Of major interest is the design of molecular bio-electronic devices merging the physical principles of electronics and computer engineering with the functional and structural principles of biology