For nano, I think the first thing I would do is actually build capacity within the universities for young researchers who are working with nanotechnology. There were programs from NSERC and CIHR, and what ended up happening was that people were just modifying their research to fit the nano space when they were not really nanotechnology researchers on a global scale.
The first thing is, how do you get the universities to bring in smart people who are in this area? I'm not from Canada, but I was brought in. I was one of the first ones working on nano with biology, on nano with medicine. How do you bring these people into Canada?
The next thing is to develop a strategy, build centres, and build infrastructures. There are enough infrastructures from CFI grants, but we don't have enough smart people in that particular space at this point compared to other countries. Everyone is competing right now: Singapore, South Korea, and the U.S. The next capacity is actually how to get them funding to allow them to compete.
I think that's the first thing that needs to be done: building people, getting the right people in place who can compete globally. In my opinion, right now we don't have that in the nanomedicine space. We have people who dabble in it, with a few experts, but if you look at capacity compared to Singapore, we don't have the capacity at this point.
