PROVIDENCE – Brown University Monday announced is opening a major new research center dedicated to molecular and nanoscale research and development.

The Institute for Molecular and Nanoscale Innovation (IMNI) will focus on techniques and products involving nanometer-scale structures — tiny structures with dimensions generally ranging from 1 to 100 nanometers. Scientists and scholars affiliated with IMNI will investigate the applications of molecular devices, nanoparticles and nanosystems, which now appear in a wide range of products and services, from sunscreen to improved drug delivery to solar cells.

“There are more than 400 nanoproducts on the market today and hundreds of nanotechnology-based start-up companies,” said Robert Hurt, the IMNI’s director and a professor in Brown’s Division of Engineering. “Future breakthroughs in energy, medical, and environmental technologies will likely come from incorporating nanotechnology components.”

A total of 55 Brown faculty members will be directly affiliated with the institute, which will draw from nine departments: Applied Mathematics; Chemistry; Computer Science; Ecology and Evolutionary Biology; Engineering; Molecular Pharmacology, Physiology, and Biotechnology; Pathology and Laboratory Medicine; Physics; and Sociology.

Research has been divided into three areas: the Center for Advanced Materials Research; the Center for Nanoscience and Soft Matter; and the NanoHealth Working Group. The institute will manage multi-investigator block grants and will report to the Office of the Vice President for Research at Brown. It will partner with the Center for Nanophase Materials Science at Oak Ridge (Tenn.) National Laboratories; the Marine Biological Laboratory at Woods Hole, Mass.; General Motors; and the NanoBusiness Alliance.

IMNI’s flexibility to bring in scientists with specific knowledge to each project will be a major strength of the institute, Hurt said. “You are cutting across many disciplines — scientific, political, social, and even ethical,” he said. “IMNI provides a way to put together flexible teams and go after the defining issues of our time.”

Clyde Briant, vice president for research in the Office of the Vice President for Research at Brown, said IMNI’s campus-wide scope, the existence of independent centers within the institute that use shared resources, and its integration of physical, life, and social scientists to work collectively on all aspects of nanotechnology development, will set the institute apart from other nanotechnology centers.

Brown will commemorate the opening of the institute with a three-day forum beginning Monday, May 5. All of the sessions will be open to the media and invited guests.

The forum will feature nearly two-dozen presentations on the latest research in molecular and nanotechnology. Mihail Roco, director of the National Nanotechnology Initiative at the National Science Foundation, will deliver the keynote address.

Scientists from Brown, Harvard University, Georgia Institute of Technology, Johns Hopkins University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Minnesota, New York University, North Carolina State University, Oregon State University and Yale University will also make presentations.

Other speakers and events at the IMNI forum will include a roundtable discussion on nanotechnology policy and safety issues with Norris Alderson, associate commissioner for science at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration; Vivian Ota Wang, program director of the ethical, legal, and social implications program of the National Human Genome Research Institute at the National Institutes of Health and currently on assignment at the National Science Foundation; Sally Tinkle, senior science adviser at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences; Aatish Salvi, vice president of the NanoBusiness Alliance; Christine Dodd, government relations executive at IBM; and Brown faculty.

Additional information about The Institute for Molecular and Nanoscale Innovation at Brown University – including the full program schedule, speakers and additional information about IMNI’s May 5 to 7 opening forum – can be found at: www.brown.edu/imni.