The science of the very tiny is taking very big steps into the realm of everyday life. Nanotechnology – the ability to create materials the size of an atom – is changing the way scientists do everything from store solar energy to diagnose cancer to make socks that keep your feet from smelling.

Some estimate there will be 100,000 nano products on the market within the next decade. Rapid nanoscale advances are already finding their way into consumer hands with products such as sunscreen, cosmetics, super-strong tennis rackets and bicycle frames, even stain- and wrinkle-resistant pants.

As the market grows, questions arise about the effects these new materials have on human and environmental safety. To further public policy in this emerging industry, UC researchers are working to advance our understanding of how nanomaterials react in the environment and what hazards they might pose to workers and consumers.

"Nanotechnology is neither intrinsically bad or good, but it offers tremendous opportunities to improve the world we live in. Hence, we must learn to implement nanotechnology safely," said Eric Hoek, a UCLA environmental engineering associate professor.

Hoek, who is also a researcher in the UCLA-based Center for Environmental Implications of Nanotechnology, spoke at a March seminar on nanotech that the California Toxic Substances Control Department and UC's Toxic Substances Research and Teaching Program sponsored in Sacramento. UCLA's environmental implications center, sponsored by the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, studies the toxicology and environmental impacts of nanomaterials to develop guidelines for safe use.

One of the debates among regulatory agencies, researchers and companies commercializing nano discoveries is how much this new world of science can be regulated without stifling innovation.

Nano behavior

To put nanoscale into perspective, a nanometer measures one-billionth of a meter. A single human hair is about 80,000 nanometers wide. Nanomaterials are often stronger and behave differently than the same materials produced at their regular size.

"We make things with different shapes, different forms, different modifications; we make them on the nanoscale," said Rick Kelly, director of environmental health and safety at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory's Molecular Foundry. "All of a sudden they start doing things which nobody’s ever seen before. New good stuff for the most part, but mixed into that is the concern that maybe in at least some of the cases, the new stuff that’s going to evolve out of nanotechnology is potentially harmful to workers or to the environment or even to consumers."

There are few occupational exposure guidelines for nanomaterials, said Kelly. He's worried about potential hazards at small startup nano companies without proper worker health and safety procedures.

"People working in factories that are working in carbon nanotubes, for example, might be at risk before the general public or at more severe risk," Kelly said. "That’s the part that I think the state should probably take a look at – whether or not regulation is required or even necessary."

At the Molecular Foundry, he said, researchers treat all nanomaterials as if they were toxic even when they don't yet know if they are. Researchers wear protective gear and work with robotic arms inside protective boxes. The foundry follows DOE guidelines for working with nanomaterials.

"We do worry because we have to worry to be prudent," said Emory Chan, a postdoctoral researcher at the foundry who has been working with nanotech for 10 years. "I worry about what happens to me and how I stay healthy, and I feel very comfortable here. We know how to be safe in using these materials."

If regulatory agencies make laws that stifle innovation, Chan said, people won't want to do research.

"It's not like there are nanobots who can take over the world," said Chan.

Still there is much to learn about how these new materials will react and what the consequences will be.

Evolving regulation

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency considers many nanomaterials as chemicals subject to the federal Toxic Substances Control Act. The EPA looks at the molecular structure of a chemical to decide whether it is classified in its existing chemical inventory or if it is a new chemical and, therefore, subject to different pre-manufacturing or importing regulations.

In January, the EPA issued an interim report on its new Nanoscale Materials Stewardship Program, which calls for voluntary reporting on engineered nanomaterials on the part of manufacturers. As of December 2008, 29 companies and trade associations had submitted information on 123 nanoscale materials.

At the same time researchers and regulators are exploring the nano landscape, the general public has some catching up to do. Some researchers warn that nanomaterials are becoming the next GMOs in the public's mind because nanotechnology can be as little understood and as greatly feared as genetically modified organisms.

So is the public really ready for a nano world? It all depends.

Awareness studies have found that 70 to 90 percent of people in the United States have little or no knowledge of nanotechnology.

Social anthropologist Barbara Harthorn, director of the Center for Nanotechnology in Society at UCSB, studies the public's perceptions of risk involved with nanotechnology.

In a recent study of U.S. and U.K. consumers, Harthorn's research team found that people were more likely to think positively about nanomaterials in energy applications – such as making cheaper, flexible solar cells – than nanomaterials in health applications such as drug delivery and disease treatment.

People also had concerns about the expense of health applications and whether there will be equitable access to these groundbreaking medical discoveries. The researchers conducted four-hour nanotech workshops for the study participants in both countries and found similar attitudes.

"We had all this technical information, but most people weren't interested in learning the intricacies of the science," said Harthorn. "But they don't need to understand it to form opinions. That's like saying you can't use an iPod unless you know the science behind it, and that's not the case."

No one can yet predict all the new technologies and scientific approaches that are going to come out of nanotechnology, said Kelly: "In some ways we're going into the jungle, and we're going to come out with whatever the best products are. We can only guess now at all the benefits to society."