KYNANOMAT-2008 is a conference designed to increase collaborations between researchers within universities and industries in the state of Kentucky.  The workshop is expected to define, achieve and maintain Centers of Excellence on the use of nanoscale materials in the Commonwealth and help enable energy conversion and storage as well as focus on breakthrough discoveries in medicine and manufacturing.

Relevance of Nanomaterials

Nanoscale materials and their assemblies are being pursued to address some of the most important old grand challenges about energy generation, energy storage, environment, medicine, sensing and manufacturing. In the last ten years, there has been a tremendous progress with development and understanding nanomaterials and also with processes for making them and using them in to a variety of applications such as energy conversion, batteries, chemical production, drug delivery, therapies and sensors, etc. Some of these nanoscale building blocks include Q Dots, nanoparticles, nanowires and nanotubes.

Kentucky: A Commonwealth on the Cutting Edge

With the recent dramatic investments into research infrastructure on materials nanotechnology at several Kentucky universities, the Commonwealth has quickly developed unique capabilities and intellectual property that could play a significantly larger role in taking the research enterprise on materials nanotechnology to the next level. First, the capability could be used to support existing industry, attract new businesses to the region, and overall, enhance the economy. Second, the capability could be strategically nurtured to create centers of excellence to effectively address some of the grand challenges in energy and medicine. The overall purpose of this workshop is to bring together researchers and administrators from various academic, industrial and government organizations within the state of KY and the region to examine ways that could lead to more valuable and productive relationships specifically in the form of nationally recognized centers of excellence.

This year's workshop will be held at the Brown Hotel in Louisville, Kentucky from March 16-18, 2008.

Submission of Abstracts

Abstracts relating to the research themes with information on the title, authors and a short summary not exceeding 200 words should be submitted via e-mail to the workshop coordinator, Rodica McCoy at (rodica@louisville.edu). Contributions for both oral and poster presentations are invited. The poster presentations by graduate students will be judged and awards for the best posters in each theme will be presented during the banquet on Monday evening.