The International Center for Electronic Beam Technologies of Ukraine’s National Academy of Sciences (NANU) has launched a new company, NanoMedTech (Nanotechnologies in Medicine). Established for the industrial implementation of Ukrainian scientists’ state-of-the-art projects in nanotechnologies, this company is unique in that it has finally united Ukrainian researchers and business people. The company has been set up on the initiative of NANU President Borys Paton and a well-known businessman Serhii Taruta, who invested in this high-profile project.
“Our country has an enormous scientific potential, and our researchers are coming up with unique designs. But this potential will remain hypothetical, or else go abroad, unless it receives investments from the state or private business,” Mr. Taruta said at the launching ceremony. “So it is of paramount importance to establish a mutually-advantageous partnership in the innovation sphere, and it will benefit everybody in the long run. Nanotechnologies are, without exaggeration, technologies of the future, and we are obliged to think about the future. Moreover, these designs are supposed to serve people and improve their living standards. I see this as being of special social importance and humanitarian value.”
According to Mr. Taruta, interest in cooperation with scientists in this new field can be explained by the positive experience of nano-projects at the Industrial Union of Donbas steel mills. Yet the question of profits was never considered when NanoMedTech was being established, Mr. Taruta admitted. However, this did not prevent the businessman, much to the scientists’ content, from immediately spending one million dollars for setting up a laboratory and purchasing a special-purpose installation. “And much more money will be needed for development, possibly dozens of millions of dollars,” Mr. Taruta added.
The first full-scale project now being carried out by NanoMedTech, is the commercial production of the nano-particles of metals, metal oxides, and other materials by the unique method of electron beam sedimentation in vacuum. This technique, developed by academicians Borys Paton and Borys Movchan at the Yevhen Paton Institute of Electric Welding, has no rivals in the world. It enables obtaining nano-particles of various elements and their combinations, which affect the life of organisms at the cell level, from any materials.
“The main advantage of this technology is that it allows one to obtain very pure nano-particles in compliance with almost the whole of Mendeleev’s law. And the advantage of the nano-material plant is high productivity, which is very important for industrial application. Besides, it is protected by patents,” NanoMedTech general manager Ihor Parneta says. In his words, the company itself has already bought out all medicine-related patents and many marketable projects are being carried out.
National nano-products can be used not only in medicine, but also in agriculture or veterinary medicine. Yet medicine is the new company’s main field. Moreover, according to Mr. Paton, it plans to market nano-particle-based medicaments as early as 2011. In Mr. Paton’s view, the first medicines will be based on the nano-particles of silver, which the scientist says can relieve humankind of a large number of ailments, including cancer. “One can obtain ointments and gels on the basis of silver powder,” he noted.
“The company might yet develop even faster,” NanoMedTech general manager Ihor Parneta adds, “if the state assumed the function of a project integrator.” Mr. Parneta says this work is so far being done by the company itself, which takes too much time and effort. At the same time, developed countries have officially pronounced nanotechnologies as a path to the future, and are allocating record amounts for their development. In particular, the world’s overall investments in the development of nanotechnologies are worth more than 15 billion dollars a year. The US and Japan are spending the most on this research.
