Plenary speaker change for SPIE's Optics & Photonics conference

July 15, 2005, Bellingham, WA--Due to an illness, Richard Smalley of Rice University (Houston, TX) will not be able to speak at the plenary for the Optics & Photonics conference in San Diego, CA from July 31st to August 4th. But SPIE has just confirmed an alternate: K. Eric Drexler, chief technical advisor to Nanorex (Bloomfield Hills, MI), who will speak on development of nanosystems that first imitate and later exceed biological capabilities for molecular fabrication.

The title of Mr. Drexler's talk will be "Productive Nanosystems: Roadmap to a bottom-up revolution." Peter Hallett, development strategist with the International Society for Optical Engineering (SPIE; Bellingham, WA), says that Drexler is often described as the 'father of nanotechnology'. With three books and numerous journal articles on the subject, Drexler founded the Foresight Institute (Palo Alto, CA), a non-profit organization focused on nanotechnology. He also holds a degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT; Cambridge, MA) in Molecular Nanotechnology (the first degree of its kind).

According to Hallett, nearly 900 of the total 3600 papers being presented at Optics & Photonics 2005 are nanotechnology-related. Primary symposia topics for the conference this year, being held in conjunction with SPIE's 50th Anniversary meeting, are Optical Engineering and Instrumentation, Nanophotonics, and Illumination Engineering (see Laser Focus World, July 2005, p.34).