HOUSTON – Scientists and researchers will be thinking small, but with grand ideas when they convene at NanoSpace 2000 on Jan. 23.

Earlier concepts of nanotechnology focused on building machines at the molecular or atomic level, but have now branched out into developing applications for medicine and biomedical research.

This year’s conference, held near Johnson Space Center, will focus on this new area along with others, said JSC’s Dr. Kenneth Cox, the conference director.

"We’re trying to cut across some lines here," Cox said. "We want the life science group to work with the engineers."

Sessions during the six-day conference sponsored by NASA include panels on nanoelectronics, energy storage and biosensors.

"I think we’re going to find a lot of commonality in different areas and solutions to problems, said Dr. Carlo Montemagno of Cornell University about the conference.

Montemagno’s research includes developing biomolecular motors that could be powered by sunlight or bacteria for various tasks.

"Uses are as wide as the imagination," he said. "They could be used for sensing or placed in living cells as a pharmacy to deliver medicine when required."

Cox said the space agency hopes to stimulate interest in commercial applications of nanotechnology, but also wants to develop the technology for use in space exploration.

"We might be able to come up with an application that will let us do things cheaper and perhaps better," he said. "To get beyond low Earth orbit this sort of technology is going to have much more importance."

One technology already being discussed is development of a "space elevator" constructed by carbon nanotubes.

Conference attendees will also have a chance to tour Nobel Prize winner Dr. Richard Smalley’s lab at Rice University where carbon nanotube research is conducted.

Though nanotechnology is still the domain of the laboratory, Montemagno said he thinks government funding will pay off eventually. The Defense Department, the National Science Foundation and NASA have been funding research efforts.

"This is the result of the foresight of a lot of program managers who took the risk to invest in this," he said. "They’re the champions of the future, without them this conference wouldn’t exist."