Please note that this is BBC copyright and may not be reproduced or copied for any other purpose. RADIO 4 CURRENT AFFAIRS ANALYSIS GREY GOO’S STICKY MESS TRANSCRIPT OF A RECORDED DOCUMENTARY Presenter: Natasha Loder Producer: Simon Coates Editor: Nicola Meyrick BBC White City 201 Wood Lane London W12 7TS 020 8752 7279 Broadcast Date: 30.12.04 Repeat Date: 02.01.05 CD Number: PLN451/04VT1052 Duration: 27.40 Taking part in order of appearance: Rebecca Willis Associate Director, Green Alliance & Co-author, See Through Science Dr. George Smith, F.R.S. Professor of Materials, Oxford University Jim Thomas Programme Manager, Etcetera Group Dr. Margaret Blohm Head of Nanotechnology Research, General Electric Global Research, USA Paul Atherton Visiting Professor, Cranfield University & Chairman, Nanoventures Ltd. & Infinitesima Dr. Robert Doubleday Researcher on the social dimensions of nanotechnology, Cambridge University Professor Stephen Wood Co-director, Centre for Organisation and Innovation, Sheffield University Dr. Ken Donaldson Professor of Respiratory Toxicology, Edinburgh Unversity Dr. Kevin Matthews Chief Executive, Oxonica Ltd. The Lord Sainsbury of Turville Minister for Science & Innovation, Department of Trade & Industry LODER: What on earth is grey goo? It’s the idea that tiny little robots will one day gobble up the planet. It may be fictional, but the science that inspired it—called nanotechnology—is very real. Nanotechnology is just emerging, but it’s already been tainted with a sticky mess of controversy that’s even touched the Prince of Wales. Some are worried that its implications could cause the same kind of public backlash we saw over genetically modified organisms. WILLIS: If government and the scientific establishment are not very careful, they could end up with nanotechnology being the next GM. So, hopefully, that will encourage them to have a proper discussion about what this technology’s for and why we need it, if we need it, and that way get that debate going and stop the knee-jerk opposition. LODER: Rebecca Willis, associate director of Green Alliance—an environmental think tank. George Smith, professor of materials at Oxford University, is also worked up about nanotechnology, but in a more scholarly way. SMITH: The excitement is two-fold. One is simply due to ultra-miniaturisation. If you can get more for less, if you can make computers or medical devices or other technologies very, very small, then in principle you use less of the world’s resources to produce them. The other obvious attraction is if we can do new and different things that couldn’t be done before—and certainly there are exciting developments both in the information communications technology area and in medicine, where nanotechnology is opening up new possibilities for treatments, for communication, for wealth creation, for entertainment—a whole range of areas. LODER: Nanotechnology, it seems, could soon be all pervasive. And, as a promising area of science and technology, we can expect it to provide us with a boost to economic growth. But beyond this, what’s nanotechnology actually for? How far should we worry about it and where it might lead us? Can we be confident that we’ll manage it correctly? First, though, what is it? Jim Thomas is a programme manager for the action organisation, Etcetera Group. THOMAS: Nanotechnology is a series of technologies—it’s not a single technology—that operate at the scale of a nanometre. That’s about the same size as atoms and molecules. And what’s significant about this level is, on the one hand, you’re working at the base of matter—everything is made up from atoms and so many technologies can be built from this level; and, at the other hand, it’s an area where normal classical physics gives way to quantum physics. There’s a whole new set of properties that matter takes on. And so nanotechnologies of various kinds use these new properties. LODER: If six million atoms can fit across the head of a pin, we’re talking very small stuff indeed. So what exactly does nanotechnology make possible? Many companies around the world are trying to find out. One of the largest, General Electric of the US, makes everything from engines to toasters. In a laboratory in up-state New York, its head of nanotechnology research, Margaret Blohm, is looking for better materials, and good ol’ Mother Nature’s inspiring her to rebuild ceramics from the atoms up. BLOHM: Ceramic materials are very unique and they’re very lightweight and have very high temperature capabilities, so they’re wonderful materials for us to be using in a lot of our aircraft engine applications as well as in our energy systems. But, as everyone knows, ceramic materials are limited by how brittle they are and how easily they break. But nature has designed ceramic materials that have much, much, much superior damage tolerance than our man-made ones—for example, seashells. There are seashells where scientists have measured the physical properties and found out that the shell itself has three orders of magnitude greater damage tolerance than typical man- made ceramics. And so we’re trying to learn from nature and learn how to design and synthesise these ceramics with this type of structure, but that’s a very challenging task. LODER: What would this allow you to do with a plane, for example? BLOHM: If you could use the ceramic in more parts of the airplane, then the ceramic would most likely be replacing some metal parts. You’d be saving significant weight in the engine. And the ceramic material, because it has higher temperature capability, we can run at hotter temperatures; and that both the reduced weight and being able to run the engine hotter gives you huge improvements in efficiency. LODER: Nanotechnology could have dramatic economic implications—and not a moment too soon for bankrupt airlines. But Oxford’s George Smith thinks the possibilities go beyond improving existing products. SMITH: I am hoping for a complete revolution in medical diagnosis and treatment. We do some remarkably crude things at the moment. Bacteriological tests, for example, at the moment can take several days, during which time a person can get even more ill than they are. Big companies in the United States—for example, Motorola and others—are investing huge sums to develop devices which look rather like a mobile ’phone and the intention is that a single drop of blood from a patient can be injected into one of these devices. It’ll be circulated round on a microchip, which will contain molecular recognition, and if it’s a relatively common bacteria or virus, then this will pick it up and will tell you straightaway what’s wrong. LODER: Clever, isn’t it? And not exactly frightening in its implications. But hang on to that quietly-uttered word, “revolution”. In royal circles, it certainly seems to have caused a fuss. Just how disruptive could this technology be, and how far should we attempt to control its development? Paul Atherton’s well-placed to know. He’s a visiting professor at Cranfield University, and already runs two nanotechnology companies as well as investing in a range of others. ATHERTON: I think because it’s so many different things under one umbrella, it’s hard to see it as anything other than really incremental—but it’s serious incremental change. I don’t think it’s as profound as steam or electricity, in the sense that they were really quite narrow technological things, whereas when you talk about nanotechnology, you’re talking about a broad range of things. But there’s a great deal of incrementalism here in the way everyday things are getting better, things that you don’t really notice or think about: your mobile ’phone and the materials used to make it—that they’re lighter and stronger; cars are more reliable and they don’t rust; your glasses last for longer and they’re lighter. An awful lot of development in advanced materials is nanotechnology and it’s extremely important, but you just don’t notice it. And in that sense, it’s incremental. BLOHM: We don’t see it that way at all. LODER: Margaret Blohm, at General Electric Global Research. BLOHM: We think of it as providing the possibility for breakthroughs. LODER: So you don’t see it as an incremental science. You see it as a potentially revolutionary science? BLOHM: Right. And I would argue we can predict incremental impact, but we can’t predict revolutionary impact very well just by its definition. Nano is the third industrial revolution. The second would have been the integrated chip, the transistor in the late Forties, early Fifties. LODER: If an industrial revolution is about to happen, is there any sense that we as a society need to be worried about the changes that are going to take place? BLOHM: I don’t see any particular worry that would be out of the ordinary myself, no. Did we worry about or should we have worried about the second industrial revolution? LODER: Because we can’t be sure what the effects of nanotechnology may be, it’s pointless to worry. But the split among the experts over how radical nanotechnology is poses a dilemma. How should we treat it if we can’t agree about its implications? The controversy over GM makes this issue more pressing—although it’s still early days for nanotechnology and only a third of the public have even heard of it. Dr. Robert Doubleday is a Cambridge University researcher on nanotechnology’s social dimensions. Since the second industrial revolution, society too has changed. DOUBLEDAY: If you think of the post-war period when government funding of science was increasing rapidly, when scientists themselves were responsible for allocating funds between different projects, different disciplines, and there was if you like a veneration of science and its role in society - moving to recent times we’ve certainly seen that veneration evaporate and controversies over the uses of science, the regulation of science are now almost commonplace. And I think that is a challenge for scientists now working in Britain, in many other countries, which is how to think about conducting scientific research with public funds that is legitimate and is recognised as legitimate by the public who has funded that research. LODER: Science matters, but the social context can matter more. These questions aren’t being posed to, say, neuroscience right now. So why is legitimacy so important for nanotechnology to prove? Professor Stephen Wood is co-director of the Centre for Organisation and Innovation at the University of Sheffield. Think of him as an anthropologist of the scientific world. WOOD: I think it’s because people have spotted the next technology, or they think they’ve spotted the next technology. And, on the one hand, you have the government and business promoting it and seeing it as the next technology and one they want to foster; on the other hand, you have pressure groups who have had a lot of success with GM looking for the next success, if you like, their encore, and they’re treating nanotechnology very much as if it is like GM. It has the potentiality to be a very dangerous, toxic thing, which many of them believe should be stopped. THOMAS: It’s the fact of these being very disruptive technologies, quite world-changing technologies, very powerful technologies that says we shouldn’t be rushing very quickly into this brave, new future without asking, “What are going to be the downsides?”—because there always is. LODER: What are the downsides? THOMAS: Certainly environmental concerns. If you’re fabricating new particles and new structures on the nanoscale, they have different properties and therefore different toxicities. LODER: Etcetera Group’s Jim Thomas has a point. We’ve lived through nuclear power, thalidomide, asbestos and GM. Nanotechnology already seems to have its own skeleton in the closet—albeit a very tiny one. Some of its new materials consist of particles—such as carbon nanotubes—that are potentially toxic. These materials are already being used to strengthen products such as tennis racquets. The lesson we could draw from the past is that any whiff of danger means that we should stop work immediately before it can become a reality. So do such worries mean that we need to be concerned about nanotechnology as a whole? Oxford’s materials expert, George Smith. SMITH: The consensus is that the great majority of nanotechnology is essentially very, very low risk indeed, and that the risk is centred on the loose nanoparticles and the nanofibres. And, in that case, we don’t know enough about how they interact with biological systems or with human beings. In those narrow areas, we’ve got to do more. LODER: With all the unknown issues about the toxicity of nanoparticles, some people have suggested a moratorium on their use. Wouldn’t a precautionary approach be to say, “Right, let’s stop all this nonsense with nanoparticles because there are risks that we can’t possibly know about”? SMITH: I don’t believe that we have the evidence at the moment which would urgently require us to impose a moratorium. LODER: Is it possible to say now that, with the kind of tests that we have available today for toxicity, that something like asbestos couldn’t happen again? SMITH: It’s never possible to be totally categoric. What you have to do is to try to minimise the risk as far as possible. In the case of these carbon nanotubes—these things which are about a hundredth thousandth of the diameter of a human hair—some toxicological tests have been done where aerosols of carbon nanotubes have been sprayed into the lungs of mice and it’s been reported that this produces an aggressive immunological response, an inflammatory response. DONALDSON: The only problem with these tests at the moment is that they’re designed to detect damage to the lung, and everybody’s intuition would suggest that was a good idea since, if you inhale things, then the damage is most likely to accrue in the lungs. However, the new findings about nanoparticles are that they seem to be able to migrate away from their site of deposition to other sites in the body, so they reach the places other particles don’t reach. LODER: Ken Donaldson, professor of respiratory toxicology at Edinburgh University. DONALDSON: One of these places that they reach is the blood and another place they reach is the brain, apparently, if the latest research is true. And these kinds of end points for inhaled particles are not covered in the current testing protocols. So, if a particle was turned up by the nanotechnology industry that was especially effective at going to the brain, moving into nerve, making its way to the blood, then it would not be detected by the current protocols. And that’s where we have to consider changing them based on what we now know about the novel effects of nanoparticles. LODER: So you’d say that there was a regulatory gap? DONALDSON: Yes. With nanoparticles and nanomaterials generally, we’re actually in a position where we can do sensible toxicology along with the development —looking as we leap rather than looking before we leap or looking after we leap—and that we can actually do the assessments at the same time as the technology is developing. LODER: If the scientists agree on the tests, they can get on with assessing the risks—which may be significant. But it’s important to put nanoparticles in context. They’re not all new and artificially created. Some occur naturally and can be found in mayonnaise, cat litter and even a bracing lungful of fresh sea air. Nevertheless, industry wants a proper risk assessment because a lot hinges on how consumers view products containing nanoparticles. These already range from bandages to tennis balls, and from sunscreens to medicines. Regulators, such as America’s Food and Drug Administration, the FDA, scrutinise new pharmaceuticals to ensure they’re safe—whether they contain large or small ingredients. How anxious is Paul Atherton that the risk of toxicity from new nanoparticles could undermine the industry he’s investing in before it even gets going? ATHERTON: I think it’s a cause for some concern but not a cause for alarm, and that there are now a number of regulatory pressures bearing down upon people in these markets. They have to have product liability insurance because otherwise they might go bust if they get sued. And product liability has a price, the insurance has a price, and that’s set by the insurance companies; and if you can’t insure your product for its use with an insurer, then you are being extremely foolish. We all know the pressures from silicon implants and from asbestosis—the companies went bust and the lawsuits went into billions of dollars—and people have learnt from that and they’re very, very scared of losing the entire company because of a silly decision. LODER: Take comfort. We can trust industry to be far more careful these days because it fears it could otherwise be sued into oblivion. But consumers might be more reassured by hard evidence. Should we insist, for example, that companies find out everything there is to know about a product containing a new nanoparticle before they put it onto the market? ATHERTON: Well, you would think so at first sight but, in fact, there’s a lot of things we don’t truly understand. My favourite example of this is the wound dressings, the Acticoat™ bandages which are impregnated with very, very fine particles of silver, which it turns out kill microbes, for reasons we don’t understand. Now this technology was invented by a little Canadian company in the early Nineties and they spent ten years getting FDA approval. We still don’t know why very small particles of silver kill microbes, but we know it’s safe and now it’s in everyday use saving the lives of badly burned soldiers in Iraq or revellers in a disco fire in New York. LODER: We already accept some uncertainty about the products we buy. Nevertheless, it may be a good idea that products carry labels simply stating that new nanoparticles have been added to the ingredients. That may reassure consumers, but industry is looking for something more. Chemist, Kevin Matthews, is chief executive of Oxonica, a nanomaterials company based near Oxford. Some nanoparticles could evade current safety testing rules entirely. MATTHEWS: There is a gap in the sense of nanomaterials where, if the material’s already been registered at one size domain—the large size if you like—and we’re now making a much smaller particle, under the regulations you can argue it’s the same thing. Now, obviously, when something’s a lot smaller, it can potentially get into the body a lot easier and it’s important that we are comfortable that that access or easier access of the material into the biology doesn’t change its toxicology. And so there is, I think, a strong argument that toxicology work should be done to show equivalents of the material between the nanoparticle and the larger bulk material. LODER: If industry’s saying that there are regulatory gaps then perhaps government should step in. Is that what Lord Sainsbury, the minister for science at the Department of Trade and Industry, has in mind? SAINSBURY: If nanoparticles have no problems—they have no health hazard—then there’s no point in putting in either testing or measurement or any further regulations. Now obviously if they do, then we may need to tighten the regulations. But in most cases the regulations will capture that. So what we’re now doing is through the Health and Safety Executive, through various government departments, we’re collaborating on doing that research and very carefully looking at the regulations in different areas to see whether there are any gaps in it. LODER: It doesn’t sound as though the Government is in any hurry to demand new standard tests for products containing nanoparticles. But the controversy over nanotechnology doesn’t stand or fall on this issue alone. The worries of the dedicated nano-naysayers are broad. Very broad. Jim Thomas. THOMAS: There’s a number of things that are needed quite urgently for nanotechnology. One is a certain amount of governance and regulations, and not just safety regulations, but governance structures that allow ordinary people—allow the poor, the disadvantaged—to have a say over the direction in which the technology is going. Most of the applications of nanotechnology are aimed towards quite pointless consumer items or military uses and that may not be the way in which the public or other groups would like to see this developing. What it reflects is who’s got the money, who’s got the power and what their interests are. LODER: But, I mean, as a pointless consumer, I may actually want one of these products. THOMAS: Absolutely! But then, you know, we need to ask environmental questions: what else is it replacing? I mean, every time a technology is introduced into society, there’s a whole set of effects. The more powerful that technology—and I’m not saying some of these are so powerful, but some are—the bigger those effects can go. LODER: Is this not just a sort of squeal of powerlessness? THOMAS: It may be. Yes, I think there is a lot of powerlessness over the way in which technology is developed. At present, the technological developments are driven largely by rich corporations or they’re driven by rich governments or they’re driven by those who are in positions of privilege, and this is exactly the reason why we have very strong backlashes against new technologies. People feel very left out of that. Nanotechnology looks like the same sort of thing we’ve seen with nuclear power, with chemicals, with genetic engineering and, yes, people are saying, “Please, slow down!” LODER: Trying to restrain the pace of innovation won’t work. Nor, significantly, will it appeal to the green groups who are hoping nanotechnology will one day produce better solar cells for sustainable energy and smarter ways of cleaning up pollution. Rebecca Willis of the Green Alliance is the co-author of a recently- published pamphlet, See-through Science. She doesn’t want the science slowed down; she wants it shaped. Although nanoscience hasn’t done anything wrong yet, we may need to get in there now because it still might. WILLIS: When we call for a public debate on nanotechnology, it’s not just a public debate: let’s talk about it for a week and then go home. What it is is a gradual process of involvement at every stage of the process. So you might start with a very general debate about nanotechnology, what its potential applications are and how people feel about that. You could then move on to looking at specific applications such as renewable energy and maybe even take the same people through a debate about specific applications. But what we would say is that you need that broad debate, you need to be able to shape the general direction before you focus in on the specifics. LODER: Is there not a danger that this kind of consultation would lead to sort of populist decisions about what is the right area of science to pursue rather than necessarily rational ones? WILLIS: No, we’re not saying that the public should have control over scientific research. What we’re saying is that scientific research is only one part of the equation; that alongside the science you need consideration of the social implications, you need to ask the questions about the social purpose of that technology. LODER: Debate sounds eminently sensible and attractively democratic. But it’s not obvious that more public involvement in shaping science will actually deliver more good for society. On the one hand, the public is faced with complicated science and technology. On the other, many scientists are strangers to public dialogue. That could reinforce any polarisation rather than diminish it. Robert Doubleday is a social scientist who’s spent the last six months working with the nanotechnology researchers at Cambridge University. Does he support a public debate to keep his nanoscientists focused on the social purpose of science? DOUBLEDAY: It might not necessarily be a very wide public debate, but it might be about bringing in just a broader range of perspectives rather than just leaving it to the chemists, physicists, biologists at the lab bench to think about the ways that their research might be directed towards technological goals; but to bring in, as well as let’s say people from the industry, a broader range of perspectives that might include groups from civil society, policymakers. LODER: So it’s more than about scientists just being warm-hearted towards the public? You’re asking scientists to be more aware of the societal concerns that exist and actually focus their research on delivering solutions to those concerns? You’re asking, in a way, for scientists to think about the way they do science and to perhaps do it a little differently? DOUBLEDAY: Yes, I think that’s right. It’s particularly relevant, I think, in the case of nanoscience and nanotechnology because already that is an inter-disciplinary area of scientific research that brings in physicists, chemists, biologists and engineers to do fundamental science that’s already directed at technological goals. SAINSBURY: I think it’s very important that there is public debate, but I think it’s very important that one focuses on the issues that you can do something about and which it’s sensible to do something about. LODER: Lord Sainsbury, the minister for science. SAINSBURY: Those are essentially the regulatory issues of ethics, safety, health, environment, but where I think it’s not much point in having a debate is in some kind of debate which says, “Is nanotechnology a good technology or a bad technology?” And the reason for saying that is we don’t know, first of all, what are the products of nanotechnology going to be. And even if you did, it’s very doubtful you could make any kind of calculus which would say this is a good or bad thing. LODER: We need to be realistic. Public debate could be useful, but has limitations. It won’t allow us to predict the future, and anyway surprises are part of innovation and change. Institutions such as the research councils already steer the basic science. But maybe we’re concentrating too much on the laboratory and not enough on what comes out of it. Lord Sainsbury, minister for science and innovation. SAINSBURY: We obviously have an overall policy, which is to create the best possible conditions for innovation in all its forms to help us with wealth creation and solving the public policy issues. There’s going to be all sorts of applications of this, some of which are clearly enormously good. I mean, it will help us on say energy policy by having better fuel cells. There’s going to be a whole range of things on water purification and so on. So there clearly are some good things. It’s possible to envisage things which could be harmful. What we need to do is make certain we control any possible harmful effects. LODER: If nanotechnology is to deliver more—both socially and economically—then managing innovation is the more promising, though less glamorous area to focus on. Stephen Wood, anthropologist of science. WOOD: We talk about this technology as if it can suddenly emerge, but particularly in the English context we know that organisations are very poor at managing technology, they’re very poor at making use of good R&D, they waste a lot of resources, and the technology transfer from universities to business—the commercialisation of science, as it’s called these days—we’re not very good at it. This is in some sense a more pressing issue. If you want to take advantage of these technologies, press them in the right direction. It may well be that the engagement of the public in this debate is less important than ensuring that we develop institutions and organisations that can really take advantage of these things. LODER: This is where we need to act. Public debate may help comfort society in these post-GM days. But nanotechnology is already here, with much more to come. In every area of science, from optics to electronics, the small scale is the cutting edge. And because nanotechnology is such a wide range of tools and technologies, whose only unifying feature is its size, it can’t be opposed in the way that GM foods were. The sticky mess that grey goo has created is the impression that something terrible’s about to happen if we don’t put the breaks on to nanotechnology. Yes, there is quite a lot of uncertainty, and some clear, specific areas of known risk. Our existing institutions and policies need to manage them better than they have in the past. But although nanotechnology involves lots of new science, we shouldn’t assume that we have to find an entirely new way of making it useful to society. 2