Nanotechnology in San Bernardino

The Nanotechnology Summit 2014 was held at the Donald F. Averill Applied Technology Training Center on Friday April 25 in San Benardino. There were several guest speakers including; Dr. Jason Morales, Dr. Meyya Meyyapan, Dr. Nosang Myung, and JP Mobasher who all came to lecture about nanotechnology as an industry and the potential uses for future advancements to technology. Nanotechnology is the science of manipulating materials at the atomic level to design and manufacture new and better materials and products. Due to quantum mechanical effects at the nanoscale, the physical properties of materials change as do the rules of manufacturing. Michelle Alva and Roberto Davila from Valley College came to present their current research projects in school. Robert Macias who took classes from the Donald F. Averill Applied Technology Training Center (ATTC) also attended the lecture along with a myriad of educators, scientists, researchers, and community members. The ATTC is located in San Bernardino and offers technician training in nanotechnology. The overall goal of this training project is to retrain and retool incumbent and other workers in order to cultivate a regional pipeline of skilled individuals ready to work in the emerging, high-growth sector of Nanotechnology. The Nanotechnology training is mostly conducted at the ATTC and some components of the on-the-job (hands-on) training are held at the University of California - Riverside, Kelly Space & Technology in San Bernardino and Molecular Express, Inc. in Rancho Dominguez. Sam On Ho is a research scientist at Molecular Express, Inc. who came to the event to show his support. Molecular Express is the organization that is part of the nano medicine classes offered at ATTC. She stated, “They are using a practical side on nanotechnology and using nano scale particles to deliver drugs or vaccines for the treatment and prevention and detection of disease.” Dr. Matthew K. Isaac opened the event and shared, “We want the center to be a beacon of hope and wanted to provide short term training because this is a fast emerging industry and will revolutionize how we practice medicine and treat cancer.” 5th District County Supervisor Josie Gonzales spoke about nanotechnology and said, “It is unfathomable how much we don’t know. It’s a spatial frontier to learn, to digest, and chose different roads and journeys to be written about one day. You are truly where no man has gone before and we must herald what is taking place and to recruit bright minds to onto the unknown and to decide what road to take and to eliminate what roads didn’t work, there are frontiers out there to be explored.” Roberto Davila came from Valley College and spoke about his research project he presented saying, “The process of synthesizing nanoparticles isn’t as easy as it seems. It took a lot of calculations and a lot of patience to properly synthesize these particles. It teaches one that they shouldn’t tack things with this type of technology for granted. I plan on becoming a mechanical engineer and creating the next big thing with a major company.” Dr. Meyya Meyyappan is the Chief Scientist for Exploration Technology and works at the NASA Ames Research Center. He spoke about what nanotechnology is being used for at the moment and the potential it carries for the future. He shared that the impact of nanotechnology can be used in the fields of electronics, computing, communications, materials and manufacturing. There are current applications such as flexible batteries, solar cells, RFID, LED, and antenna speakers. Some applications he spoke of included the possibility nanotechnology used to help the elderly in their homes and creating bio markers to detect the human breath and detect acetone in diabetes patients or NO in asthma patients. Dr. Jamail Carter worked for two years at the Assistant Director at ATTC and came to support Dr. Matthew K. Isaac and shared, “It’s important in looking at San Bernardino and in order to get out of economic depression and the need to get into evolving industries. Since the closing of the steel mills and the base, we haven’t been able to bounce back yet. The Silicon Valley [is known for being a tech community] and San Bernardino should be known as the Nano Empire and hopefully one day that will come to fruition. Dr. Isaac is a major visionary and I know he’s working hard to sustain the program. The Summit brought together many groups from various fields and Dr. Carter said, “The Summit helps educate people and bring people together and put groups and show people we need to get behind this today and encourage everyone to take part and we as a community, if we can get behind nanotechnology, it can take us a long way.” For more information about nanotechnology and ATTC visit, http://www.attctraining.org/