October 2 , 2009

Achal Oza (’09)

Kevin Rollins (’09)

Alumni weigh in on nanotechnology: Kevin Rollins (’09) and Achal Oza's (’09) coursework published

Nanotechnology, the study and manipulation of materials at the molecular scale, is a rapidly growing industry. The Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies estimates that over 800 nanotech products are publicly available, with new items hitting the market at a pace of 3-4 per week. Much of this technology, including its long-term effects on people’s health, is little understood, and the federal government is still struggling to create meaningful regulation of the industry. Through BU Law's seminar in Biotechnology Law & Ethics, students are making strides in this emerging field.

Kevin Rollins ('09) and Achal Oza ('09), former students in Professor Michael Baram’s Biotechnology Law & Ethics seminar at BU Law, recently published papers exploring this important topic. Rollins published his term paper for the course in Nanotechnology Law & Business, and Oza was published in The Journal of BioLaw & Business. These are not the first students to be recognized for their research in this course. Since 2000, The Journal of BioLaw & Business has published 14 law student term papers from the course.

The Journal of BioLaw & Business is an international quarterly journal for attorneys, biotechnology and pharmaceutical executives, biomedical researchers, investors, risk managers and other professionals interested in biotechnology and the life sciences. Nanotechnology Law & Business (NLB) is a peer-reviewed journal devoted to the legal, business and policy aspects of small-scale technologies. “NLB provides valuable expert insights and analysis for all professionals involved in these fast-developing fields,” according to the journal’s Web site.

Kevin Rollins’ paper is titled “Nanobiotechnology Regulation: A Proposal For Self-Regulation With Limited Oversight.”

“In the article, I propose a largely self-regulating system that comprises (1) the creation of a federal agency to collect existing information about the potential dangers of specific nanotechnologies and also to facilitate research into specific types of nanotechnology that have not been investigated thoroughly; and (2) enacting new federal causes of action for harms created by nanobiotechnology with extended statutes of limitation such that victims will be able to fully recover damages and technology developers will have a strong incentive to ensure that they do not expose people to a harmful product,” said Rollins, who is a patent attorney and the general counsel for NEMS/MEMS Works. The company serves “as a vehicle for the transfer of new technologies from the laboratory to the marketplace,” according to its Web site.

Before law school, Rollins worked as a consulting engineer at Black & Veatch, where he did economic and financial consulting work in the energy industry, including litigations for approval of power plant constructions or environmental regulation compliance.

Achal Oza’s paper, “Labeling and Failure-to-Warn Concerns for FDA-Regulated Goods Incorporating Nanotechnology” discusses tort liability for failure-to-warn claims of FDA-regulated goods incorporating nanotechnology.

In the paper, Oza discusses FDA regulated products and their nanoscale components. “FDA guidelines do not currently require disclosure of the presence of nanoscale components because the FDA has determined that ‘current science does not support a finding that classes of products with nanoscale materials necessarily present greater safety concerns than classes of products without nanoscale materials.’ Despite the FDA guidelines, however, a firm may still be liable under products liability law for failure-to-warn by not disclosing the presence of nanoscale components. This article explores the tort liability for failure-to-warn claims that firms selling FDA-regulated goods incorporating nanotechnology may face. It finds that a firm may be liable for a failure-to-warn claim under an unknown ingredient theory if a product's nanoscale component injured a consumer and a court were to determine that the disclosure of a bulk scale ingredient was insufficient disclosure of its nanoscale counterpart.”

A full list of Oza’s publications, which includes a note in The Boston University Law Review, can be found on his Web site, AchalOza.com. Oza holds a B.S. in Electrical Engineering & Computer Science from UC Berkeley and an M.S. in Computer Systems Engineering from Northeastern University.

“The impetus for me attending law school was so I could apply my engineering background to the law and policy making. Tort law – especially product liability – was one of my favorite subjects during the first year of law school, so I thought this paper topic would be a great way to combine several of my interests,” he said.

Oza will work for the next year as a fellow with the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights. Later, he will join Goodwin Procter's Boston office as a corporate attorney focusing on intellectual property issues.

Reported by Elizabeth Ress