Research ongoing in nanotechnology industry: commercial applications may be years away, but that...

FOR A DECADE, BIOTECHNOLOGY HAS been the industry most coveted by state and local economic development officials eager to get in on the ground floor of a burgeoning sector that holds the promise of million of dollars in revenues.

In the next decade, nanotechnology might rival biotechnology as that industry.

Nanotechnology refers to the ability to manipulate individual atoms and molecules, making it possible to build machines on the scale of human cells, or create materials and structures from the bottom up with novel properties.

Nanotechnology co