California NanoSystems Institute (CNSI)

Established in 2000 as one of the Governor Gray Davis California Institutes for Science and Innovation, the California NanoSystems Institute (CNSI) is a hub of interdisciplinary research, translation, and education where scientists from diverse fields find common purpose in addressing grand challenges of the 21st century. With locations at the University of California’s Los Angeles and Santa Barbara campuses, the CNSI leverages public and private investment to drive collaborative nanoscience research across disciplines, translates discoveries into knowledge-driven commercial enterprises, and educates the next generation of scientists and engineers.

The mission of the California NanoSystems Institute at UCLA is to leverage public and private investment for nanoscience research at the interfaces between disciplines, translate discoveries into knowledge-driven commercial enterprises, and educate the next generation of scientists and engineers. At CNSI, engineers and oncologists create drug delivery systems to treat cancer. Chemists, physicists, and neurologists develop nanoelectronic sensors for mapping the brain. Environmental engineers and biologists use nanobiotechnology to clean pollutants from water. The CNSI is where collaboration drives discovery, creativity triggers innovation, and ideas that will define our future become a reality.

As one of four Governor Gray Davis Institutes for Science and Innovation (GGDISI), the CNSI builds on a visionary investment in future education, research, and technological resources given by the state of California. CNSI provides unique educational opportunities for the modern scientific leader by engaging learners from primary school students to established scientists and industry professionals. The Institutes leverage an unprecedented public-private partnership to affect research areas critical to sustaining California’s economic growth and its competitiveness in the global marketplace. These Institutes open the doors to new understanding, new applications, and new products through essential research in biomedicine, bioengineering, nanosystems, telecommunications, and information technology.

CNSI is a 188,000 square foot, world-class research facility centrally located in UCLA’s Court of Sciences. The CNSI facility provides collaborative research space for new initiatives, sophisticated tools and technologies to support its mission to encourage university collaborations with industry, and to enable discovery. In addition, the building offers modern community areas designed to stimulate exchange and collaboration among researchers. The interactive areas include a 260-seat theater, lobby space, conference and break rooms, and a presentation and discussion space along with outdoor terraces. The CNSI building creates an array of opportunities for scholarly achievement, business exchange, and visionary research.

The CNSI Technology Centers provide unrestricted access to fully integrated R&D infrastructure, professional support and collaborative research opportunities in the fabrication, characterization and screening of nanomaterials, systems, and devices. Directed by a group of leading scientists, the Centers develop technologies that promote discovery through direct grant support, user proposals and industrial partnerships. Access to these facilities is available 24 hours a day, 365 days a year for students, postdocs, staff, faculty and industrial scientists, and is managed through the CNSI Laboratory Management System (CLMS).

CNSI houses multiple state of the art Technology Centers, including the Electron Imaging Center for Nanomachines (EICN), the Advanced Light Microscopy and Spectroscopy (ALMS) Laboratory, the Nano & Pico Characterization (NPC) Laboratory, the Molecular Screening Shared Resource (MSSR), the NSF BioPACIFIC Materials Innovation Platform, and the UCLA Nanofabrication Laboratory (NanoLab).

For more information, please visit the CNSI website.

Last updated
November 20, 2023