Last week I was in Chicago for "The Next Little Thing: Nano, Business & Society in the 21st Century," a fascinating conference put on by the Chicago-Kent College of Law's Center on Nanotechnology and Society. The organizers did a great job of balancing the business and social aspects of nanotech by providing an excellent lineup of speakers and panelists.

One of the best was keynote speaker Aatish Salvi, Vice President of the NanoBusiness Alliance. Among his many salient points:

Venture capital for nanotech was down in 2004 compared to 2003, and may be shifting from the US to Europe and Asia. The reason? Desire for a quicker profit than the US lab-to-market cycle can create, and concern about an unclear regulatory environment stateside.

There's growing concern that the US Patent and Trademark Office can't handle the workload of processing the flood of nanotech patents coming their way. They lack the expertise, have no nanotech base of existing patents to work from, and have even reached out to the NanoBusiness Alliance for help in handling the volume.

Not enough students are graduating in engineering, especially with a specialty in nanotech. If we don't develop the workforce expertise to carry out the nanotech revolution, somebody else will.

Regulatory uncertainty in the US reduces nanotech's attractiveness to investors, creates potentially unbounded liability risks for nanotech companies, and encourages offshoring of nanotech development.

On the other hand, Salvi believes, nanotech has seen more regulation by non-governmental organizations (NGOs) than any previous technology.

Predictive analysis, publishing extensive testing data prior to marketing nanoproducts, he argued, can destroy a company's competitive advantage by revealing too much proprietary information and slowing the development process. And how, he wondered, can developers be expected to know all the potential applications and consequences of their inventions?

He reiterated the NanoBusiness Alliance's call to increase environmental, health and safety funding in the National Nanotechnology Initiative budget from 4% to 10% (to $100 million).

Perhaps his most intriguing comment came in response to my question about new models for the commercialization of nanoproducts and materials developed in academic labs. He suggested that universities should be required to fund commercial startups if they receive government funds. The universities might not agree, but you've got to give Salvi credit for exploring new possibilities and putting them out there for discussion. Give the Center on Nanotechnology and Society credit, too, for hosting this and future discussions that are truly shaping the future of nanotech development.