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Responsible Development of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology: Contextualizing Socio-Technical Integration into the Nanofabrication Laboratories in the USA

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Abstract

There have been several conscious efforts made by different stakeholders in the area of nanoscience and nanotechnology to increase the awareness of social and ethical issues (SEI) among its practitioners. But so far, little has been done at the laboratory level to integrate a SEI component into the laboratory orientation schedule of practitioners. Since the laboratory serves as the locus of activities of the scientific community, it is important to introduce SEI there to stimulate thinking and discussion of SEI among practitioners, which would eventually contribute toward the responsible development of this technology. In this article, through an example (at the Cornell NanoScale Science and Technology Facility (CNF), practitioners of which represent a section of the nano researchers’ community in the USA), it is shown how a SEI component can be incorporated into the laboratory orientation schedule of the practitioners from diverse disciplinary and institutional backgrounds. Results show that, at CNF, the practitioners enjoyed the discussion since most of them learned about SEI for the first time in their professional career. At the same time, some of them were also knowledgeable about SEI and contributed to the debates. Moreover, the SEI orientation had significant positive impact on the scientific community enabling them to self-reflect upon their own research and its implications for the wider society. This article also describes the efforts that were undertaken to disseminate this form of SEI orientation to other 13 USA universities within the National Nanotechnology Infrastructure Network (NNIN, one of the biggest networks funded from National Science Foundation for Nanotechnology research, of which CNF is a part). As a result of this effort, most of the NNIN sites have already started or were in the process of integrating a SEI component into their nanofabrication laboratories to make their users aware of SEI, ensuring eventual robust socio-technical integration in the NNIN laboratories. In the future, this form of SEI orientation can also be disseminated to other nanofabrication laboratories in the USA.

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Notes

  1. For details about the user distribution please visit: http://www.nnin.org/nnin_reports.html.

  2. To know more about SEI activities within NNIN and its wide range of programs please visit www.sei.nnin.org.

  3. Dr. Douglas Kysar, et.al. had developed this video which can be viewed at- www.nnin.org.

  4. Before the January SEI workshop, I collected the data from all the 14 NNIN sites about the four issues described above.

  5. This text is taken from CNF’s website: www.cnf.cornell.edu

  6. Refer to the CNF Laboratory usage and safety manual, Version 10.1 (June 2009)

  7. http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=108_cong_public_laws&docid=f:publ153.108, accessed on August 24, 2010

  8. Albert Einstein’s Letters to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, http://hypertextbook.com/eworld/einstein.shtml, accessed on August 25, 2010

  9. In the USA, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has a ‘Hybrid Insect- Micro- Electro- Mechanical Systems’ (HI-MEMS) program, which aims to implant and place MEMS inside insects such as moths and beetles during the early stages of metamorphosis. That way, as the bugs mature, tissues grow around and fuse together with the nano machines. The program is aimed to develop technology that provides more control over insect locomotion. Due to the small size of anything related to nano, the issue of surveillance becomes imperative. This kind of project already exists and there bound to be ethical concerns if this technology falls into the wrong hands. For further information on the project please visit http://www.darpa.mil/mto/programs/himems, accessed on July 10, 2010.

  10. Harvest of Fear, http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/harvest/, accessed on August 16, 2010

  11. Refer to the results of the study conducted by the British Market Research Bureau (BMRB) in 2004 in the UK (Nanotechnology: Views of the General Public), and Heart Research Foundation’s study in the USA in 2010 (Nanotechnology, Synthetic Biology and Public Opinion).

  12. I invite their attention to the articles published in journals such as Nature, Nature Nanotechnology, Journal of Industrial Ecology, etc.

  13. Perceptions of Nano Ethics among Practitioners in a Developing Country: A Case of India [24].The study reveals that, among 95% of the practitioners who were aware of ethical issues, 60% of them were able to identify nine types of ethical issues. The types of ethical issues that the practitioners thought as unique to NST, were: possible ill effects on environment; possible ill effects on human health and safety; unsafe laboratory conditions; use as a weapon; hype; work ethics; laboratory testing on animals; cyborgs; widening the gap between rich and poor; self-replication, and longevity of human life.

  14. Version 8 (SAS Inst., Inc., Cary, NC)

  15. Patra, D. 2010. User manual for the social and ethical issues (SEI) orientation in NNIN sites (Version 1.1), Cornell University.

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Acknowledgements

This work is based upon support by the National Science Foundation through the NNIN. I thank all the CNF users for their feedback on the SEI orientation. I thank Mike Skvarla for providing constant encouragement and feedback on SEI orientation at CNF. I thank Derek Stewart, Donald Tennant, and Stephen Hilgartner for their insightful comments on the draft version of this paper. I would like to thank Abani Pradhan for carrying out statistical analyses for this paper.

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  1. Cornell NanoScale Science and Technology Facility and Department of Communication, Cornell University, 250 Duffield Hall, Ithaca, NY, 14853, USA

    Debasmita Patra

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Patra, D. Responsible Development of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology: Contextualizing Socio-Technical Integration into the Nanofabrication Laboratories in the USA. Nanoethics 5, 143–157 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11569-011-0118-y

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