Collaborative Research: Planning Grant: Center for Agricultural and Pharmaceutical Nanotechnology

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Planning Grant for an I/UCRC for Agricultural and Pharmaceutical Nanotechnology0934153 University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; Brian Cunningham 0934103 Purdue University; Richard Linton The Center for Agricultural and Pharmaceutical Nanotechnology (CAPN) will focus on developing technology platforms that can be applied to three substantially important topics requiring strong industry/academic partnerships: Nanotechnology, Agriculture, and Pharmaceutical Research. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) and Purdue University (PU) are collaborating to establish the proposed center, with UIUC as the lead institution. CAPN aims to focus at the confluence of nanotechnology, agricultural sciences and pharmaceutical research, and assemble a group of researchers and industrial partners with diverse backgrounds and expertise to address several "grand challenge" types of problems in food production, agriculturally-derived materials, and health care. UIUC and PU plan to use the NSF planning grant fund to hold a meeting with prospective industrial partners to establish the proposed Center's organizational framework, and to establish research projects of greatest relevance. The combination of three vastly different research fields provides a highly complementary environment that can seed new partnerships to address intractable problems. Nanotechnology, Agriculture, and Pharmaceuticals share many linkages that can be exploited to find solutions to these problems. CAPN would provide a rich interdisciplinary research environment, working in concert with industry to solve industry challenges, that supports projects with broad impact on health care and agriculture. CAPN plans to solicit support from both large and small companies, and to form partnerships with industry consortiums such as the Illinois Soybean Association, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, and others. UIUC and PU also plan to attract highly qualified, domestic students form constituencies under-represented in engineering and biology: women, minorities, and students with disabilities.