Abstract Atlanta Conference
The “10/90 Gap” in Health Related Nanotechnology Research
PI: Thomas Woodson, Graduate Student, School of Public Policy, Georgia Institute of Technology
Advisor: Susan Cozzens, Associate Dean for Research Ivan Allen College, Georgia Institute of
Technology
Short abstract:
This paper examines inequality within nanohealth research. After conducting a bibliometric analysis of
Web of Science and PubMed, I conclude that most nanotechnology research is geared towards diseases that affect the rich world, however, there is some research being conducted on diseases of poverty.
Problem Description:
Access to health care is one of the basic rights of human beings and it is the focus of many development and aid organizations. For example, in 2000 the United Nations (UN) adopted the
Millennium Development Goals (MDG) which outline eight different poverty alleviation arenas that the world community wants to rectify by 2015 (United Nations, 2010). Three of the goals, child health, maternal health, and HIV/AID, deal directly with healthcare.
Despite the focus on health by aid organizations, individuals in poor countries still lack medicine to treat deadly diseases, while people in rich countries have a plethora of medicines to treat non-essential diseases like erectile dysfunction. One reason for this gap in healthcare is that there is not much research being done on diseases that affect poor countries. In 1990 the Global Forum for Health
Research estimated that 90% of all health related research funding is geared towards diseases that affect only 10% of the world’s population. They named this ratio the, the 10/90 gap (Global Forum for Health
Research, 2004).
In addition to healthcare, nanotechnology has received a lot of attention and many think it will be the transformative technology. An influential Africa scientist, Mohamed Hassan (2005), says that
“nanotechnology could prove to be a transformative technology comparable in its impact to the steam engine in the 18 th century, electricity in the 20 th century, and the Internet in contemporary society”
(Hassan, 2005). As a result many countries, especially poorer countries, are heavily investing in the technology. One study conducted by Salamanca-Buentello et al. (2005) outlines ten different nanotechnologies that will help the world’s poor. Three of the ten technologies, disease diagnosis, drug delivery, and health monitoring, deal with healthcare issues (Salamanca-Buentello, 2005).
However, is the 10/90 gap still prevalent in health related nanotechnology? Have the national innovations systems in emerging countries corrected the imbalances? This presentation investigates the
10/90 gap in health related nanotechnology and determines whether national innovation systems models can correct for imbalances that arise based on market oriented systems of innovation.
Literature:
Systems of innovation models have a long history and they’ve been used to describe the development of technology sectors from a variety of countries (Nelson, 1993, Freeman & Lundvall,
1988). Some of the systems rely heavily on industrial R&D while other systems, especially those in poorer countries, are dominated by government R&D. Public and private R&D have different goals.
Private R&D is driven by the markets and they need a quicker return on investment than public R&D.
Hence private companies invest in projects that will sell in rich countries because they can make a profit in these markets (Woodhouse & Sarewitz, 2007). Private R&D tends to thrive in economic liberalized environments with strong intellectual property rights. Those these regulations may more profitable, they can increase economic inequality.

Methods:
To collect my data, I conducted a bibliometric search of all the health related nanotechnology research publications. I used the nanotechnology database created by a group of researchers at the
Georgia Institute of Technology (Porter, Youtie, Shapira, & Schoeneck, 2007). The database contains a list of the nanotechnology articles in ISI’s Web of Science. The team created the database by using keywords to search for nanotechnology articles in Web of Science and then exporting those files into a separate database. The group has collected nanotechnology articles from 1995 until 2010.
To identify the health search terms, I used several nano health review articles (ETC Group, 2006;
2005; Sahoo, Parveen, & Panda, 2007) to generate nano health search terms. I then went through a variety of bootstrapping and culling processes to refine my search (Porter, Youtie, Shapira, &
Schoeneck, 2007).
Like all databases, the Georgia Tech nano database has its limitations. Since the data is based on
Web of Science publication, it will share the same flaws as Web of Science like a bias towards western and English journals. Moreover the nano database is will miss some nanotechnology articles depending on how the scientists define nanotechnology and the scope of Web of Science. Despite the limitations of the database, I still think I will get an accurate assessment of health related nanotechnology.
Summary of main findings:
I have conducted an initial search for health related articles in the 2009 nanodatabase and about
16% of the articles are related to healthcare. Of these articles 42% were from low income countries.
However if we don’t consider China a low income country only 10.3% of the articles were from low income countries. In addition, about 23% of the articles relate to cancer and 2% of the articles are related to Alzheimer’s while only .5% are related to tuberculosis or malaria. The data shows that this is still a
10/90 gap in the health related nanotechnology.
Bibliography:
ETC Group. (2006). Medical Applications of Nano-scale Technologies: What Impact on Marginalized
Communities?
Ottawa: ETC Group. Retrieved from http://www.etcgroup.org/en/materials/publications.html?pub_id=593.
Freeman, C., & Lundvall, B.-A. (Eds.). (1988). Small Countries Facing the Technological Revolution .
New York: Pinter Publishers.
Global Forum for Health Research. (2004). The 10/90 Report on Health Research 2003-2004 .
Development . Geneva, Switzerland.
Hassan, M. H. A. (2005). Small Things and Big Changes in the Developing World. Science , 309 (July),
65-66.
Nelson, R. R. (Ed.). (1993). National Innovation Systems: A Comparative Analysis . New York: Oxford
University Press.
OECD. (2005). Opportunities and risks of Nanotechnologies . Paris, France.
Porter, A., Youtie, J., Shapira, P., & Schoeneck, D. (2007). Refining Search Terms for Nanotechnology.
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Sahoo, S., Parveen, S., & Panda, J. (2007). The present and future of nanotechnology in human health care. Nanomedicine: Nanotechnology, Biology and Medicine , 3 (1), 20–31. Elsevier. Retrieved
January 30, 2011, from http://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S154996340600342X.
United Nations. (2010). The United Nations at a Glance. New York: United Nation. Retrieved from http://www.un.org/en/aboutun/index.shtml.

Woodhouse, E., & Sarewitz, D. (2007). Science policies for reducing societal inequities. Science &
Public Policy (SPP) , 34 (2), 139-150. Beech Tree Publishing. Retrieved from 10.3152/030234207X
195158data.