Nanotech in the South | The National Nanotechnology Initiative, southern states

The National Nanotechnology Initiative, now in its eighth year, continues to expand its network of networks, to the point where artificial intelligence will soon be needed to keep track of everything going on. Here is just a sampling of nanotechnology centers in the Southern states:

• The National Science Foundation's National Nanotechnology Infrastructure Network has two facilities in the South: the Microelectronics Research Laboratory at Georgia Institute of Technology, and the Microelectronics Research Center at the University of Texas-Austin.

• The National Cancer Institute's Centers of Cancer Nanotechnology Excellence include the Nanotechnology Center for Personalized and Predictive Oncology, which is an Emory University-Georgia Tech partnership, and the Carolina Center of Cancer Nanotechnology Excellence at the University of North Carolina.

Rice University in Houston hosts the Center for Biological and Environmental Nanotechnology, and also offers a Professional Master of Science in Nanoscale Physics.

• The University of Virginia has a Center for Nanoscopic Materials Design.

• Louisiana Tech University offers a Bachelor of Science in Nanosystems Engineering, a Master of Science in Molecular Sciences and Nanotechnology, and an interdisciplinary Ph.D. in Engineering that focuses on micro/nanosystems.

• Texas A&M University's nanotech programs include the Institute for Intelligent Bio-Nanomaterials & Structures for Aerospace Vehicles.

• Oak Ridge National Laboratory hosts the Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences.

• The University of Alabama's Center for Materials for Information Technology is focusing on nanotech R&D for data storage technologies.

• The Center for Semiconductor Physics in Nanostructures is an interdisciplinary collaboration between the University of Arkansas and the University of Oklahoma.

• The Oklahoma Nanotechnology Initiative, a state-funded program, continues to see its network grow, now linked to almost 100 university nanotech researchers at eight academic institutions throughout the state and more than a dozen Oklahoma-based nanotech companies.

• In Kentucky, both the University of Kentucky and the University of Louisville have nanotech research centers.