Founded in early 2005, Nano-Terra is a nano- and micro-technology development company headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA. We commercialize our technology platform and the know-how of our people in strategic partnerships with large national and international companies that understand the strategic value of our technology and people, and how they apply to a broad range of current and future development efforts. We partner with large companies that commit to a longer-term win-win relationship in all industries outside pharmaceuticals/medical, including electronics, aerospace, energy, industrial products, consumer goods, and government agencies.

We develop simple, elegant, practical solutions to complex scientific and technological challenges. We recognize that making a real difference in markets and, more broadly, in society, requires the translation and application of leading scientific innovation for commercial realities. Core research and development takes place in our own laboratory with in-house scientists and engineers, supplemented by scientific and engineering resources as needed from our partners. We work with our partners during the integration and scale-up phase. Our development work focuses on specific products and processes with commercial potential validated by our partner. Our partners market and sell these co-developed products to end-users in industrial and consumer markets.

Nano-Terra’s capabilities are based on the scientific innovations of our co-founder and Chairman Prof. George Whitesides and a worldwide network of collaborators. Key components of our technology platform include Soft Lithography, Self-Assembly, Surface Chemistry, and Fluidics. The initial pioneering Whitesides inventions in these areas in the early to mid-90s have seen broader and deeper applied development in Prof. Whitesides’ lab at Harvard University and in numerous academic and commercial labs throughout the world over the last decade.

To date, more than 2,000 peer-reviewed research papers on the use of our technologies have been published (please refer to publications webpage for examples of Prof. Whitesides’ recent published work – please note that this excludes work published by other innovators in this field who are part of our network); numerous lab prototypes have been developed; and volume manufacturing proofs of principle exist at companies such as IBM and Philips Electronics. In addition, our technology platform has seen first commercial successes through life-sciences companies Surface Logix (enabling toolset for compound discovery) and Fluidigm Corporation (microfluidic devices for protein crystallization in drug discovery), providing further evidence of the practical value of Nano-Terra’s technology platform and people.

We believe that the cumulative research and development to date, from which Nano-Terra derives its capabilities, has reached critical mass and sufficient practical value for application-specific deployment in non-life sciences industries. We bring to our strategic partnerships an integrated, multidisciplinary team of world-class chemists, biologists, physicists, and engineers. We pair this scientific team with world-class infrastructure and experienced senior executives to build a company with a strong innovation culture and a commitment to world-class execution for our strategic partners.