The International Institute for Nanotechnology’s annual day-long symposium returned to Northwestern on Thursday, this time with an emphasis on educating the 660 registered attendees on how cutting-edge nanoscience may revolutionize the health care industry. This year’s event, “Nanotechnology in Biology and Medicine,” was held in the Hotel Orrington, 1710 Orrington Ave., and featured seven distinguished speakers from schools around the country including Stanford and Pennsylvania State universities. The presentations pertained to the theme of implementing nanoscale research into the medical field.

While the seven speakers collectively covered a wide array of nanoscale medical technologies, they each reported on their specific research. One of the talks focused on how nanoscience breakthroughs may hold the key to transforming the way scientists develop drugs to combat cancer.

Key Takeaways from professors:

• Prof. Chad Mirkin, director of the International Institute for Nanotechnology, a joint venture between NU and the Center for Nanoscale Materials at Argonne National Laboratory, and a member of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, discusses the symposium and his work.

The International Institute for Nanotechnology unites more than $445 million in nanotechnology research, educational programs and infrastructure. Each year, the institute organizes and sponsors a symposium that relates to current science topics in which nanotechnology has made significant advances, he said.

“This symposium not only focuses on nanoscience and nanotechnology, but how it impacts biology and health care,” Mirkin said. “Many of the discoveries that are being presented here are going to be the next wave of diagnostic, imaging and therapeutic tools used by the health care profession.”

“(This includes) anything ranging from the development of tools for tracking cancer at early stages to new types of therapies for many types of cancers that currently can’t be treated,” Mirkin said.

• The Institute’s yearly symposium is free of charge and accessible and engaging to both scientists and lay people, said C. Shad Thaxton, co-chair of the event and an assistant professor of urology at the Feinberg School of Medicine.

“We’re trying to cover a broad amount of information that is understandable … to not only scientists, but the public as well,” he said. “I think (everyone) can get a good feel for what’s … going on in nanotechnology.”

Although nothing specific has been laid out yet, the theme of next year’s symposium will relate to one of nanotechnology’s contributions to other scientific fields, Thaxton said.

“The wonderful thing about nanotechnology is its (amount) of applications and (the number of) fields that it impacts,” he said.