Two Steps Forward, One Step Back: Shaping the Nanotechnologies Landscape Through Regulatory Choice

Over 50 years have now passed since Professor Richard Feynman presented his now legendary lecture, There's Plenty of Room at the Bottom: An Invitation to Enter a New Field of Physics, to the 1959 annual meeting of the American Physical Society. During the course of his evening address, the Nobel Prize winning physicist eloquently presented his vision for "maneuvering things atom by atom." He articulated a "bottom-up" approach for manipulating matter for the purpose of exploiting the novel properties of materials that exist at this scale. In doing so, the scientist challenged his colleagues to think beyond the traditional boundaries of physics and chemistry in order to work within the "very, very small world." While the lecture is just one of the many events or contributions that has helped to shape the field of scientific endeavor which has now been labeled as "nanotechnologies," Feynman's message to think beyond the conventional borders would appear to be equally relevant when considering how to govern this specific disruptive technology, and those that shall follow it.