Introduction

NACBO is the project acronym for Novel and Improved Nanomaterials, Chemistries and Apparatus for Nano-Biotechnology which is supported by EU Sixth Framework Programme. The project’s primary objectives are the establishment and maintenance of a European centre of excellence in the area and it is funded for four-years in the first instance. NACBO has a total budget of €12 million: €8million from the European Union, €0.5m from China and €3.5m from European industry.

NACBO brings together key European industries and governmental agencies with world class research institutes. Industries taking part are Philips (Aachen, Germany), Sigma-Aldrich Biochemie GmbH (Hamburg, Germany) and Savyon Diagnostics (Ashdod, Israel) together with the Health Protection Agency (UK), Criminalpol (Italy) and the Istituto Zooprofilattico Sperimentale dell'Umbria e delle Marche  (Perugia, Italy). The academic organisations which are taking part in NACBO are University of Kent (Canterbury, UK); Universita degli Studi di Urbino (Urbino,Italy) East China University of Science and Technology (Shanghai, PRC); Hebrew University at Jerusalem (Israel); Shemyakin Ovchninnikov Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry (Moscow, Russia) and Bar Ilan University (Tel Aviv, Israel).

Nanotechnology is still being explored by researchers as a science and has been described as an ‘enabling technology’ rather than a technology in its own right.