33 Unresolved Questions in Nanoscience and Nanotechnology

Chad A Mirkin^{1

2}, Sarah Hurst Petrosko¹, Natalie Artzi^{3

4

5}, Koray Aydin⁶, Austin Biaggne⁷, C Jeffrey Brinker⁸, Katherine E Bujold⁹, Y Charles Cao¹⁰, Rachel R Chan¹, Chaojian Chen¹¹, Peng-Cheng Chen¹², Xiaodong Chen¹³, Olivier J G L Chevalier¹, Chung Hang Jonathan Choi¹⁴, Richard M Crooks¹⁵, Vinayak P Dravid¹⁶, Jingshan S Du¹⁷, Sasha B Ebrahimi¹⁸, Hongyou Fan^{19

20}, Omar K Farha¹, C Adrian Figg²¹, Tanner D Fink¹, Connor M Forsyth²², Harald Fuchs²³, Franz M Geiger¹, Nathan C Gianneschi²⁴, Kyle J Gibson²⁵, David S Ginger²⁶, SiShi Guo²⁷, Justin S Hanes^{28

29}, Liangliang Hao³⁰, Jin Huang¹, Bryan M Hunter¹, Fengwei Huo³¹, Jeongmin Hwang¹, Rongchao Jin³², Shana O Kelley^{1

2}, Thomas J Kempa³³, Youngeun Kim³⁴, Sergej Kudruk¹, Sneha Kumari¹, Kaitlin M Landy³⁵, Ki-Bum Lee³⁶, Noel J Leon⁷, Jun Li¹, Yuanwei Li³⁷, Zhiwei Li³⁸, Bin Liu³⁹, Guoliang Liu⁴⁰, Xiaogang Liu⁴¹, Luis M Liz-Marzán^{42

43

44}, Jochen H Lorch^{7

45}, Taokun Luo¹, Robert J Macfarlane⁴⁶, Jill E Millstone⁴⁷, Milan Mrksich⁴⁸, Catherine J Murphy^{2

49}, Rajesh R Naik⁵⁰, Andre E Nel⁵¹, Christopher Oetheimer⁵², Jenny K Hedlund Orbeck⁷, So-Jung Park⁵³, Benjamin E Partridge⁵⁴, Nicholas A Peppas⁵⁵, Michelle L Personick⁵⁶, Arindam Raj¹, Namrata Ramani^{3

4

5}, Michael B Ross⁵⁷, Stacey Barnaby Ross⁵⁸, Edward H Sargent⁵⁹, Tanushri Sengupta⁷, George C Schatz¹, Dwight S Seferos^{60

61}, Tamar Seideman¹, Soyoung Eileen Seo⁶², Bo Shen⁶³, Wooyoung Shim⁶⁴, Donghoon Shin¹, Ulrich Simon⁶⁵, Andrew J Sinegra⁶⁶, Peter T Smith¹, Alexander M Spokoyny^{67

68}, Peter J Stang⁶⁹, Alexander H Stegh⁷⁰, J Fraser Stoddart⁷¹, Dayne F Swearer⁷², Weihong Tan^{73

74}, Michelle H Teplensky⁷⁵, C Shad Thaxton^{7

76}, David R Walt^{3

77}, Mary X Wang⁷⁸, Zhe Wang⁷⁹, Wei David Wei⁸⁰, Paul S Weiss^{68

81}, Peter H Winegar^{82

83

84}, Younan Xia⁸⁵, Yi Xie¹, Xiaoyang Xu⁸⁶, Peidong Yang⁸⁷, Yiming Yang¹, Zihao Ye¹, Kuk Ro Yoon⁸⁸, Cuizheng Zhang¹, Hua Zhang⁸⁹, Ke Zhang⁵², Liangfang Zhang⁹⁰, Xiaoyu Zhang¹, Ye Zhang⁹¹, Zijian Zheng⁹², Wenjie Zhou⁹³, Shengshuang Zhu⁹⁴, Wei Zhu²⁷

Affiliations

¹ Department of Chemistry and International Institute for Nanotechnology, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois 60208, United States.
² Chan Zuckerberg Biohub Chicago, Chicago, Illinois 60642, United States.
³ Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, Harvard University, Boston, Massachusetts 02215 United States.
⁴ Brigham and Woman's Hospital, Department of Medicine, Division of Engineering in Medicine, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts 02115 United States.
⁵ Institute for Medical Engineering and Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138 United States.
⁶ Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and International Institute for Nanotechnology, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois 60208, United States.
⁷ International Institute for Nanotechnology, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois 60208, United States.
⁸ Departments of Chemical and Biological Engineering, Molecular Genetics and Microbiology, and the Comprehensive Cancer Center, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, New Mexico 87131, United States.
⁹ Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario L8S 4M1, Canada.
¹⁰ Department of Chemistry, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida 32611, United States.
¹¹ School of Materials Science and Intelligent Engineering, Nanjing University, Suzhou 215163, China.
¹² Department of Materials Science and International Institute for Intelligent Nanorobots and Nanosystems, Fudan University, Shanghai 200438, China.
¹³ Innovative Center for Flexible Devices (iFLEX), Max Planck-NTU Joint Laboratory for Artificial Senses, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore 639798, Singapore.
¹⁴ Department of Biomedical Engineering, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, New Territories 999077, Hong Kong SAR.
¹⁵ Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas 78712, United States.
¹⁶ Department of Materials Science and Engineering and International Institute for Nanotechnology, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois 60208, United States.
¹⁷ Physical Sciences Division, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, Washington 99354, United States.
¹⁸ Drug Product Development, Emerging Drug Delivery Platforms, GSK, Collegeville, Pennsylvania 19426, United States.
¹⁹ Sandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque, New Mexico 87185, United States.
²⁰ Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, New Mexico 87131, United States.
²¹ Department of Chemistry and Macromolecules Innovation Institute, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, Virginia 24061, United States.
²² Interdisciplinary Biological Sciences Graduate Program and International Institute for Nanotechnology, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois 60208, United States.
²³ University of Münster, Physikalisches Institut and Center for Nanotechnology, Münster 48149, Germany.
²⁴ Departments of Chemistry, Materials Science and Engineering, Biomedical Engineering, and Pharmacology, and International Institute for Nanotechnology, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois 60208, United States.
²⁵ Department of Chemistry, Alma College, Alma, Michigan 48801, United States.
²⁶ Department of Chemistry, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington 98195, United States.
²⁷ MOE International Joint Research Laboratory on Synthetic Biology and Medicines, School of Biology and Biological Engineering, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou 510006, China.
²⁸ Department of Ophthalmology and Center for Nanomedicine at Wilmer Eye Institute, School of Medicine, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland 21231, United States.
²⁹ Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Whiting School of Engineering, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland 21218, United States.
³⁰ Department of Biomedical Engineering, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts 02215, United States.
³¹ Nanjing Tech University, Nanjing, Jiangsu 210037, China.
³² Department of Chemistry, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15213, United States.
³³ Department of Chemistry, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland 21218, United States.
³⁴ Department of Materials Science and Engineering and Research Institute of Advanced Materials (RIAM), Seoul National University, Seoul 08826, South Korea.
³⁵ Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois 60637, United States.
³⁶ Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, Rutgers University, Piscataway, New Jersey 08854, United States.
³⁷ Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305, United States.
³⁸ Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland 20742, United States.
³⁹ Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, National University of Singapore, Singapore 119077, Singapore.
⁴⁰ Department of Chemistry, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, Virginia 24061, United States.
⁴¹ Department of Chemistry, National University of Singapore, Singapore 117543, Singapore.
⁴² CIC biomaGUNE, Basque Research and Technology Alliance (BRTA), Donostia-San Sebastián 20014, Spain.
⁴³ Ikerbasque, Bilbao 48009, Spain.
⁴⁴ University of Vigo, 36310 Vigo, Spain.
⁴⁵ Northwestern University, Feinberg School of Medicine, Department of Hematology and Oncology, Chicago, Illinois 60611, United States.
⁴⁶ Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, United States.
⁴⁷ Departments of Chemistry, Chemical Engineering, and Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15260, United States.
⁴⁸ Departments of Chemistry, Biomedical Engineering, and Cell and Developmental Biology and International Institute for Nanotechnology Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois 60208, United States.
⁴⁹ Department of Chemistry, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, Illinois 61801, United States.
⁵⁰ MINED XAI, Dayton, Ohio 45402, United States.
⁵¹ David Geffen School of Medicine and California NanoSystems Institute, University of California, Los Angeles, California 90095, United States.
⁵² Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, Northeastern University, Boston, Massachusetts 02115, United States.
⁵³ Department of Chemistry and Nanoscience, Ewha Womans University, Seoul 03760, Korea.
⁵⁴ Department of Chemistry, University of Rochester, Rochester, New York 14627, United States.
⁵⁵ McKetta Department of Chemical Engineering, Department of Biomedical Engineering, Institute for Biomaterials, Drug Delivery and Regenerative Medicine, Department of Pediatrics and Department of Surgery and Perioperative Care, Dell Medical School, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas 78712, United States.
⁵⁶ Department of Chemistry, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia 22904 United States.
⁵⁷ Department of Chemistry, University of Massachusetts Lowell, Lowell, Massachusetts 01854, United States.
⁵⁸ Quanterix, Billerica, Massachusetts 01821, United States.
⁵⁹ Departments of Chemistry and Electrical and Computer Engineering and International Institute for Nanotechnology, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois 60208, United States.
⁶⁰ Department of Chemistry, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario M5S 3H6, Canada.
⁶¹ Department of Chemical Engineering and Applied Chemistry, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario M5S 3E5, Canada.
⁶² School for Engineering of Matter, Transport and Energy, Biodesign Center for Sustainable Macromolecular Materials and Manufacturing, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona 85287, United States.
⁶³ Department of Materials Science and Engineering, City University of Hong Kong, Kowloon, Hong Kong 999077, China.
⁶⁴ Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Center for Multi-Dimensional Materials, Center for Nanomedicine, Institute for Basic Science (IBS), and Yonsei IBS Institute, Yonsei University, Seoul 03722, Korea.
⁶⁵ Institute of Inorganic Chemistry, RWTH Aachen University, 52074 Aachen, Germany.
⁶⁶ Department of Analytical Research and Development, Merck & Co., Inc., West Point, Pennsylvania 19486, United States.
⁶⁷ Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California 90095, United States.
⁶⁸ California NanoSystems Institute, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California 90095, United States.
⁶⁹ Department of Chemistry, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah 84112, United States.
⁷⁰ Department of Neurosurgery, The Brain Tumor Center, Washington University School of Medicine, Alvin J. Siteman Comprehensive Cancer Center, St. Louis, Missouri 63110, United States.
⁷¹ Department of Chemistry, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong 999077, P. R. China.
⁷² Department of Chemistry, Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, and International Institute for Nanotechnology, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois 60208, United States.
⁷³ Department of Pathology, Zhejiang Cancer Hospital, The Key Laboratory of Zhejiang Province for Aptamers and Theranostics, Hangzhou Institute of Medicine (HIM), Chinese Academy of Sciences, Hangzhou, Zhejiang 310022, China.
⁷⁴ Molecular Science and Biomedicine Laboratory (MBL), State Key Laboratory of Chemo/Biosensing and Chemometrics, College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, College of Biology, Aptamer Engineering Center of Hunan Province, Hunan University, Changsha, Hunan 410082, China.
⁷⁵ Department of Biomedical Engineering and Division of Materials Science and Engineering, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts 02215, United States.
⁷⁶ Northwestern University, Feinberg School of Medicine, Department of Urology, Chicago, Illinois 60611, United States.
⁷⁷ Department of Pathology, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts 02115, United States.
⁷⁸ Convergence Research, West Chester Township, Ohio 45069, United States.
⁷⁹ Department of Chemical and Biochemical Engineering, University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa 52242, United States.
⁸⁰ Department of Chemistry and Center for Catalysis, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida 32611, United States.
⁸¹ Departments of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Bioengineering, and Materials Science and Engineering; University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California 90095, United States.
⁸² California Institute for Quantitative Biosciences (QB3 Institute), University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley, California 94720, United States.
⁸³ Biological Systems and Engineering Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, California 94720, United States.
⁸⁴ Joint BioEnergy Institute, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Emeryville, California 94608, United States.
⁸⁵ The Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering and School of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Georgia Institute of Technology and Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia 30332, United States.
⁸⁶ Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering and Department of Biomedical Engineering, New Jersey Institute of Technology, Newark, New Jersey 07102, United States.
⁸⁷ Departments of Chemistry and Materials Science and Engineering, University of California Berkeley, Berkeley, California 94720, United States.
⁸⁸ Department of Chemistry, Hannam University, Daejeon 34430, South Korea.
⁸⁹ Department of Chemistry, City University of Hong Kong, Kowloon, Hong Kong 999077, China.
⁹⁰ Aiiso Yufeng Li Family Department of Chemical and Nano Engineering, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, California 92093, United States.
⁹¹ Frontiers Science Center for Transformative Molecules, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, China.
⁹² The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong 999077, China.
⁹³ Division of Engineering and Applied Science, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California 91125, United States.
⁹⁴ Arbor Biotechnologies, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02140, United States.

PMID: 40905551
PMCID: PMC12696693
DOI: 10.1021/acsnano.5c12854

33 Unresolved Questions in Nanoscience and Nanotechnology

Chad A Mirkin et al. ACS Nano. 2025.

. 2025 Sep 16;19(36):31933-31968.

doi: 10.1021/acsnano.5c12854. Epub 2025 Sep 4.

Authors

Affiliations

¹ Department of Chemistry and International Institute for Nanotechnology, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois 60208, United States.
² Chan Zuckerberg Biohub Chicago, Chicago, Illinois 60642, United States.
³ Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, Harvard University, Boston, Massachusetts 02215 United States.
⁴ Brigham and Woman's Hospital, Department of Medicine, Division of Engineering in Medicine, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts 02115 United States.
⁵ Institute for Medical Engineering and Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138 United States.
⁶ Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and International Institute for Nanotechnology, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois 60208, United States.
⁷ International Institute for Nanotechnology, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois 60208, United States.
⁸ Departments of Chemical and Biological Engineering, Molecular Genetics and Microbiology, and the Comprehensive Cancer Center, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, New Mexico 87131, United States.
⁹ Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario L8S 4M1, Canada.
¹⁰ Department of Chemistry, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida 32611, United States.
¹¹ School of Materials Science and Intelligent Engineering, Nanjing University, Suzhou 215163, China.
¹² Department of Materials Science and International Institute for Intelligent Nanorobots and Nanosystems, Fudan University, Shanghai 200438, China.
¹³ Innovative Center for Flexible Devices (iFLEX), Max Planck-NTU Joint Laboratory for Artificial Senses, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore 639798, Singapore.
¹⁴ Department of Biomedical Engineering, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, New Territories 999077, Hong Kong SAR.
¹⁵ Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas 78712, United States.
¹⁶ Department of Materials Science and Engineering and International Institute for Nanotechnology, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois 60208, United States.
¹⁷ Physical Sciences Division, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, Washington 99354, United States.
¹⁸ Drug Product Development, Emerging Drug Delivery Platforms, GSK, Collegeville, Pennsylvania 19426, United States.
¹⁹ Sandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque, New Mexico 87185, United States.
²⁰ Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, New Mexico 87131, United States.
²¹ Department of Chemistry and Macromolecules Innovation Institute, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, Virginia 24061, United States.
²² Interdisciplinary Biological Sciences Graduate Program and International Institute for Nanotechnology, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois 60208, United States.
²³ University of Münster, Physikalisches Institut and Center for Nanotechnology, Münster 48149, Germany.
²⁴ Departments of Chemistry, Materials Science and Engineering, Biomedical Engineering, and Pharmacology, and International Institute for Nanotechnology, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois 60208, United States.
²⁵ Department of Chemistry, Alma College, Alma, Michigan 48801, United States.
²⁶ Department of Chemistry, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington 98195, United States.
²⁷ MOE International Joint Research Laboratory on Synthetic Biology and Medicines, School of Biology and Biological Engineering, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou 510006, China.
²⁸ Department of Ophthalmology and Center for Nanomedicine at Wilmer Eye Institute, School of Medicine, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland 21231, United States.
²⁹ Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Whiting School of Engineering, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland 21218, United States.
³⁰ Department of Biomedical Engineering, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts 02215, United States.
³¹ Nanjing Tech University, Nanjing, Jiangsu 210037, China.
³² Department of Chemistry, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15213, United States.
³³ Department of Chemistry, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland 21218, United States.
³⁴ Department of Materials Science and Engineering and Research Institute of Advanced Materials (RIAM), Seoul National University, Seoul 08826, South Korea.
³⁵ Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois 60637, United States.
³⁶ Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, Rutgers University, Piscataway, New Jersey 08854, United States.
³⁷ Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305, United States.
³⁸ Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland 20742, United States.
³⁹ Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, National University of Singapore, Singapore 119077, Singapore.
⁴⁰ Department of Chemistry, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, Virginia 24061, United States.
⁴¹ Department of Chemistry, National University of Singapore, Singapore 117543, Singapore.
⁴² CIC biomaGUNE, Basque Research and Technology Alliance (BRTA), Donostia-San Sebastián 20014, Spain.
⁴³ Ikerbasque, Bilbao 48009, Spain.
⁴⁴ University of Vigo, 36310 Vigo, Spain.
⁴⁵ Northwestern University, Feinberg School of Medicine, Department of Hematology and Oncology, Chicago, Illinois 60611, United States.
⁴⁶ Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, United States.
⁴⁷ Departments of Chemistry, Chemical Engineering, and Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15260, United States.
⁴⁸ Departments of Chemistry, Biomedical Engineering, and Cell and Developmental Biology and International Institute for Nanotechnology Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois 60208, United States.
⁴⁹ Department of Chemistry, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, Illinois 61801, United States.
⁵⁰ MINED XAI, Dayton, Ohio 45402, United States.
⁵¹ David Geffen School of Medicine and California NanoSystems Institute, University of California, Los Angeles, California 90095, United States.
⁵² Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, Northeastern University, Boston, Massachusetts 02115, United States.
⁵³ Department of Chemistry and Nanoscience, Ewha Womans University, Seoul 03760, Korea.
⁵⁴ Department of Chemistry, University of Rochester, Rochester, New York 14627, United States.
⁵⁵ McKetta Department of Chemical Engineering, Department of Biomedical Engineering, Institute for Biomaterials, Drug Delivery and Regenerative Medicine, Department of Pediatrics and Department of Surgery and Perioperative Care, Dell Medical School, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas 78712, United States.
⁵⁶ Department of Chemistry, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia 22904 United States.
⁵⁷ Department of Chemistry, University of Massachusetts Lowell, Lowell, Massachusetts 01854, United States.
⁵⁸ Quanterix, Billerica, Massachusetts 01821, United States.
⁵⁹ Departments of Chemistry and Electrical and Computer Engineering and International Institute for Nanotechnology, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois 60208, United States.
⁶⁰ Department of Chemistry, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario M5S 3H6, Canada.
⁶¹ Department of Chemical Engineering and Applied Chemistry, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario M5S 3E5, Canada.
⁶² School for Engineering of Matter, Transport and Energy, Biodesign Center for Sustainable Macromolecular Materials and Manufacturing, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona 85287, United States.
⁶³ Department of Materials Science and Engineering, City University of Hong Kong, Kowloon, Hong Kong 999077, China.
⁶⁴ Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Center for Multi-Dimensional Materials, Center for Nanomedicine, Institute for Basic Science (IBS), and Yonsei IBS Institute, Yonsei University, Seoul 03722, Korea.
⁶⁵ Institute of Inorganic Chemistry, RWTH Aachen University, 52074 Aachen, Germany.
⁶⁶ Department of Analytical Research and Development, Merck & Co., Inc., West Point, Pennsylvania 19486, United States.
⁶⁷ Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California 90095, United States.
⁶⁸ California NanoSystems Institute, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California 90095, United States.
⁶⁹ Department of Chemistry, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah 84112, United States.
⁷⁰ Department of Neurosurgery, The Brain Tumor Center, Washington University School of Medicine, Alvin J. Siteman Comprehensive Cancer Center, St. Louis, Missouri 63110, United States.
⁷¹ Department of Chemistry, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong 999077, P. R. China.
⁷² Department of Chemistry, Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, and International Institute for Nanotechnology, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois 60208, United States.
⁷³ Department of Pathology, Zhejiang Cancer Hospital, The Key Laboratory of Zhejiang Province for Aptamers and Theranostics, Hangzhou Institute of Medicine (HIM), Chinese Academy of Sciences, Hangzhou, Zhejiang 310022, China.
⁷⁴ Molecular Science and Biomedicine Laboratory (MBL), State Key Laboratory of Chemo/Biosensing and Chemometrics, College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, College of Biology, Aptamer Engineering Center of Hunan Province, Hunan University, Changsha, Hunan 410082, China.
⁷⁵ Department of Biomedical Engineering and Division of Materials Science and Engineering, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts 02215, United States.
⁷⁶ Northwestern University, Feinberg School of Medicine, Department of Urology, Chicago, Illinois 60611, United States.
⁷⁷ Department of Pathology, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts 02115, United States.
⁷⁸ Convergence Research, West Chester Township, Ohio 45069, United States.
⁷⁹ Department of Chemical and Biochemical Engineering, University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa 52242, United States.
⁸⁰ Department of Chemistry and Center for Catalysis, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida 32611, United States.
⁸¹ Departments of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Bioengineering, and Materials Science and Engineering; University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California 90095, United States.
⁸² California Institute for Quantitative Biosciences (QB3 Institute), University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley, California 94720, United States.
⁸³ Biological Systems and Engineering Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, California 94720, United States.
⁸⁴ Joint BioEnergy Institute, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Emeryville, California 94608, United States.
⁸⁵ The Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering and School of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Georgia Institute of Technology and Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia 30332, United States.
⁸⁶ Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering and Department of Biomedical Engineering, New Jersey Institute of Technology, Newark, New Jersey 07102, United States.
⁸⁷ Departments of Chemistry and Materials Science and Engineering, University of California Berkeley, Berkeley, California 94720, United States.
⁸⁸ Department of Chemistry, Hannam University, Daejeon 34430, South Korea.
⁸⁹ Department of Chemistry, City University of Hong Kong, Kowloon, Hong Kong 999077, China.
⁹⁰ Aiiso Yufeng Li Family Department of Chemical and Nano Engineering, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, California 92093, United States.
⁹¹ Frontiers Science Center for Transformative Molecules, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, China.
⁹² The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong 999077, China.
⁹³ Division of Engineering and Applied Science, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California 91125, United States.
⁹⁴ Arbor Biotechnologies, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02140, United States.

PMID: 40905551
PMCID: PMC12696693
DOI: 10.1021/acsnano.5c12854

Abstract

Significant advances in science and engineering often emerge at the intersections of disciplines. Nanoscience and nanotechnology are inherently interdisciplinary, uniting researchers from chemistry, physics, biology, medicine, materials science, and engineering. This convergence has fostered novel ways of thinking and enabled the development of materials, tools, and technologies that have transformed both basic and applied research, as well as how we address critical societal challenges. In this Nano Focus, we pose and explore 33 questions whose answers could profoundly impact fields such as energy, electronics, the environment, optics, and medicine. These questions highlight the need for deeper foundational understanding, improved tools and techniques, and innovative applications─each with significant societal relevance. Together, they represent a global call-to-action for the scientific community.

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Conflict of interest statement

Conflict of Interest

A.H.S. is a shareholder of Exicure Inc., which develops SNA therapeutic platforms. A.H.S. is an inventor on patent US20150031745A1, which describes SNA nanoconjugates that cross the blood-brain barrier. VPD is co-founder of Coral Innovations, a nanotech start-up that is commercializing IP on water cleanup from NU. C.A.M has financial interests in Azul 3D, Inc., TERA-print, LLC, Mattiq, Inc., and Flashpoint, Inc., which could potentially benefit from the outcomes of this research.

Figures

**Figure 1.**
Nanoscience and nanotechnology have united disciplines.

**Figure 2.**
Key unresolved questions in nanoscience and nanotechnology encompass: Foundational Understanding, Tools and Techniques, Impactful Applications, and Societal Implications.

See this image and copyright information in PMC

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33 Unresolved Questions in Nanoscience and Nanotechnology

Affiliations

33 Unresolved Questions in Nanoscience and Nanotechnology

Authors

Affiliations

Abstract

Conflict of interest statement

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