ANN ARBOR, Mich., Nov. 10, 2003 -- Recognizing the people, products and companies that are leading the growth of the micro and nanotechnology industry, Small Times Media announces its 2003 Small Times Magazine Best of Small Tech Awards. These awards represent the best of the best in nanotechnology, MEMS and microsystems.

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"The 2003 Small Times Magazine Best of Small Tech Award winners are impacting our lives," said Steve Crosby, president and publisher of Small Times Media. "Our winners have found commercial success in small tech by playing a key role in homeland defense, launching one of the year's few successful IPOs and helping to save a major corporation from bankruptcy."

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The awards will be presented at the NanoCommerce 2003 conference in Chicago on Dec. 9.

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Best of Small Tech Award: Product

The true mark of an emerging technology is its integration into products. The winner of our 2003 Small Times Magazine Best of Small Tech Product Award is Cepheid's GeneXpert. This microtechnology product is the monitor in a system that the U.S. Postal Service is using to help detect anthrax.

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Runners-up are Agilent Technologies' film bulk acoustic resonator (FBAR) duplexer, Knowles Acoustics' SiSonic microphone, LG Electronics' Nano Carbon Ball and TheraSense's FreeStyle blood glucose monitoring system.

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Company

Nano-Tex's role in rescuing the textile firm Burlington Industries and its marketing successes earned it top honors in the Best of Small Tech company category. Nano-Tex produces polymers that attach to or wrap around fibers to make fabric stain-proof, wrinkle-free and absorbent. Nano-Tex's stain-resistance technology is being incorporated into Gap, Old Navy and Brooks Brothers clothing lines. Nike Inc. is using Nano-Tex's sweat-repellant technology for Tiger Woods golf pants.

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Runners-up are BEI Technologies, FormFactor, NanoOpto and Obducat AB.

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Business Leader

The 2003 Small Times Magazine Best of Small Tech Business Leader succeeded in taking a small tech company public in a difficult economy. FormFactor CEO Igor Khandros built his company to answer an industry need, creating MEMS technology that connects test equipment to multiple chips still on a wafer, saving semiconductor manufacturers money.

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Runners-up are Larry Bock (Nanosys), Charles Harris (Harris & Harris), George Henderson (Burlington Industries) and Yang Zhao (MEMSIC).

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Researcher

A nanotechnology researcher from California won this year's Small Times Magazine Best of Small Tech Researcher Award. Paul Alivisatos of University of California, Berkeley, designed a nanocrystal that is expected to improve the efficiency of hybrid plastic solar cells.

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Runners-up include Phaedon Avouris (IBM), Cees Dekker (Delft University of Technology), Masayoshi Esashi (Tohoku University) and Chad Mirkin (Northwestern University).

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Innovator

NEC's Sumio Iijima's work with carbon nanotubes and their applications earned him the title of 2003 Small Times Magazine Best of Small Tech Innovator. He is not only the first person to identify carbon nanotubes, but he successfully incorporated them into fuel cells for laptops.

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Runners-up include Stephen Fodor (Affymetrix), Lewis Gruber (Arryx), David Soane (Nano-Tex) and George Whitesides (Harvard University).

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Advocate

Steve Jurvetson of Draper Fisher Jurvetson is known for his knowledge, visionary zeal, outspoken support and willingness to invest in small tech. Unlike many investors, Jurvetson takes an active role as an industry proponent, speaking at conferences and authoring articles.

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Runners-up include Phil Bond (Department of Commerce), Marlene Bourne (In-Stat/MDR), Tim Harper (Cientifica) and Ottilia Saxl (Institute of Nanotechnology).

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Lifetime Achievement

Richard Smalley is a Nobel Prize winner, a Rice University professor, founder of Carbon Nanotechnologies Inc. and someone who has the ear of leaders in Washington. Smalley is best known for co-discovering buckyballs in the 1980s and developing a related molecule, the carbon nanotube. Now Richard Smalley is working to gain support in Washington for clean and affordable energy based on nanotechnology and other advancements.