Nanotechnology — Think really small

"We're understanding the human body so much better, and as we do so we're going to be able to treat so many different diseases better, quicker, faster, at the nano scale," Uldrich said.

The first step will be diagnostics. Getting results of blood tests now often take days and is relatively costly. But a New York company is developing a device "costing a couple of dollars" that will be able to check blood or saliva. The company will be able to test for "literally, hundreds of thousands of diseases, and you're going to get the results instantaneously and it will be more accurate and a whole lot cheaper than anything today," Uldrich said.

Treatment will rely on the concept that nanotechnology, because it involves something so very small, is on a scale that will be recognized by human cells and "welcomed into the body," he said.

With that barrier out of the way, so-called "smart cancer bombs," consisting of a single atom of materials, could be shoved into individual cancer cells and heated with infrared light to kill the cell.

"Today, chemotherapy, which poisons the body and kills good and bad cells, is on its way out," he said. "The future is, let's just find the bad actors, the individual cancer cells, early on and kill them before that cancer can even begin to grow."

Even entire organs possibly will be able to be regrown to replace damaged or diseased ones. "It sounds like science fiction, but the way it's going to happen is at the nano scale," Uldrich said.

Utah's prime opportunity in nanotechnology is in the health-care field, because the state has strong universities; an understanding state government; the Huntsman Cancer Institute; the Wasatch Front Consortium; and private businesses that already have made headway in medical, pharmaceutical and genetic fields, he said.

"The opportunity is for all of those institutions, or for government, the educational institutions and the private sector, to begin working together and figuring out where the opportunities are, where are our strengths, what are our weaknesses, what is our niche and how do we move forward in that area," he said.

But the profound changes prompted by nanotechnology may not come easily. Small thinking by big businesses whose well-being faces potential disruption may cause big trouble with "little" science.

For example, a company that makes its dough by selling diabetes or heart-disease control products stands to lose both profits and jobs.

"I think a lot of the battles will be fought out in the public policy environment," Uldrich said. "There will be a lot of companies who currently are making good money and employing a lot of people in good-paying jobs that will deliberately try to slow down the transition.