The National Cancer Institute (NCI) has a longstanding relationship with the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to hasten the development and deployment of technologies for cancer research. This Interagency agreement addresses an important and rapidly emerging area of importance in cancer research. Nanotechnology is providing the research community new opportunities to define the processes of cancer at the atomic level, yielding new approaches diagnosis, treatment and prevention. Fundamental work in the physical sciences has yielded many promising opportunities for the interface of synthetic materials to interact with biological systems, in particular cells that are undergoing malignant change. The underlying goal of this collaboration is to support the characterization of nanomaterials and nanodevices that will be applied to cancer research.
