Mission of the center
The Nanotechnology Innovation Center of Kansas State (NICKS) is led by Regents Distinguished Scholar and University Distinguished Professor Nancy A. Monteiro-Riviere, a toxicologist in the department of Anatomy and Physiology. The mission of the NICKS is to enhance cutting-edge interdisciplinary research in the broad field of nanotechnology. This Center will be based upon the existing strengths of KSU faculty and leverage them to produce new applications for nanotechnology and build self-sustaining research programs. The Center will serve to inform faculty of one another's research capabilities which will foster collaborative relationships. The Center will house state of the art equipment used in nanotechnology for characterization, localization and assessing toxicity. NICKS will serve faculty and help to enhance their research productivity.
Currently, it will strive to actively engage faculty from the disciplines of physics, chemistry, engineering, biology, computational biology, veterinary medicine, and other related disciplines to solve problems and impact the direction of nanoscience research. This Center will promote interdisciplinary efforts that will spin off new ideas and form new programmatic teams to both successfully compete for funding and make new discoveries in nanotechnology.
The NICKS Center will not only engage faculty but will promote the commercialization of the faculty in their respective areas. This Center will also serve as a resource for companies actively engaged in nano research projects, industrial sponsors, defense contractors, academic researchers from other universities, entrepreneurs and others so that innovative ideas can be discussed that could potentially lead to commercialization.
The NICKS Center is housed in the College of Veterinary Medicine's newly renovated 15,000 square feet of office and laboratory research space. In addition to this Facility, there is an additional suite designated solely for electron microscopy. A new Tecnai G2Spirit Bio (TWIN) transmission electron microscope equipped with EDX, and an Hitachi S 3500N scanning electron microscope equipped with EDX. See all equipment.
