Scott McNeil, head of the Nanomaterials Characterization Laboratory of the National Cancer Institute says his company, SAIC-Frederick, has had problems hiring people who know the field and who have experience with nanotechnology. McNeil has been hiring for a year and has 11 people on his team, including a physical scientist, an immunologist, a toxicologist, and technicians. McNeil will hire more people over the next 12 months. Nanomaterials will have to be proven to be safe and effective, but not many industrial or academic labs are sufficiently expert to take on the diversity of nanomaterials and the dynamics of cancer. For that task, the NCI has made the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the NIST (National Institute of Standards) partners. NIST will assist in characterization of nanomaterials such as dendrimers and quantum dots, and the FDA will assist in determining how and when nanomaterials could be used for treatments and diagnostics. The teams plan to develop guidelines and standards for the industry and to avoid regulatory roadblocks. Standardization can save 10 years of effort, says Mauro Ferrari, one of the creators of the alliance. Equity researcher Juan Sanchez also says the creation of the lab and inclusion of the federal agencies would streamline the regulatory process and that a reference is needed. A spokesman for Nanospectra Biosciences, however, says a nano-biotechnology company loses control when another group does the testing. Stephen Barry, spokesman for Alnis BioSciences, says imposition of standards could be a concern because the methods for diagnosing or treating cancer depend on the type and stage of cancer. Barry says there is no way that the NCI can tell him what the size of a nanoparticle should be because there is no one prize molecule.