Ethics of nanobiotechnology at the frontline.

I. INTRODUCTION Nanobiotechnology promises a wide variety of medical applications. Some of the proposed applications include more efficient and specific drug delivery, systems microsurgic devices that find and destroy viruses or cancer cells, and inexpensive and high throughput diagnostic devices. If nanobiotechnology can fulfill its promises, its impact on society and market will be profound. One optimistic industry report projects that nanobiotechnology will have an overall market impact of nearly $300 billion within the next 12 years. (1) Motivated by the commercial implications, business executives, industrial research scientists and venture capitalists are quickly moving nanotechnology research from academic laboratories into industrial research programs. (2) In some areas, industrial researchers are pursuing research that may lead to commercial products in the near future. Despite its potential impact on the society, ethical issues related to nanobiotechnology are not well understood, particularly by the industrial decision-makers. II. WHAT IS NANOBIOTECHNOLOGY? For a meaningful discussion of the legal and ethical implications of an emerging technology, it would be helpful to have a working definition of the underlying technology. While all emerging technologies tend to be difficult to define, nanotechnology is a rare field that has "produced so much confusion. " (3) "Nanotechnology" has become a buzz word for the science and technology pertaining to visualization, manipulation, and control of materials at the nanometer scale. (4) A nanometer is one billionth of a meter. An atom is about one third of a nanometer wide. According to one definition, nanotechnology focuses on a scale. (5) This is a very unusual definition of a technology field because other technologies tend to be defined by a key technology or breakthrough. For example, microelectronic technology is powered by photolithographic manufacturing of integrated circuits; genetic engineering technology is based upon recombinant DNA; and the Internet is enabled by packet switching network/networking protocols/ample supply of computers, and made popular by the World Wide Web. In fact, nanotechnology, according to various definitions, may encompass many technologies that can operate on the nanometer scale. The broadness in scope presents difficulties for understanding the legal and ethical implications of nanotechnology because nanotechnology may represent a collection of technologies, each of which may have different characteristics and applications. Some ethical discussions have been focused on the field of molecular nanotechnology. (6) Technologies related to the mechanical control over the arrangement of atoms are often referred to as molecular nanotechnology. American physicist and Nobel Laureate Richard Feynman (7) introduced the concept of manipulating matter on an atomic scale and its implications in his classic talk at the American Physical Society's 1959 annual meeting. (8) Additionally, physicist K. Eric Drexler contributed significantly to the theoretical thinking about molecular nanotechnology. Drexler proposed the concept of "assemblers" which are molecular machines that are capable of building other molecular machines. (9) He also suggested "replicators" which are assembler-like devices that could create exact copies of themselves. Such replicators may enable inexpensive mass production of any device. However, not all scientists view the future in the same way as Drexler. For example, Nobel laureate Richard E. Smalley once declared that Drexler's devices "will never become more than a futuristic daydream. " (10) While it is still not possible to control and manipulate matter on an atomic scale at will, recent scientific discoveries suggest that certain rearrangement of atoms are achievable and may offer practical applications. For example, new forms of the element carbon--called fullerenes-- can be produced by vaporizing carbon condenses in an atmosphere of inert gas to form the soccer-ball-like fullerenes arrangement of carbon atoms. …