SAN DIEGO, July 22 -- R.K. Eric Drexler, often described as the 'father of nanotechnology,' will be the symposium-wide plenary speaker at Optics and Photonics 2005. Collocated with SPIE's 50th annual meeting, Optics and Photonics 2005 will feature 80 conferences, 70 courses and 230 exhibitors on topics and innovations in optical engineering and instrumentation, nanophotonics and illumination engineering. Approximately 5500 engineers and designers, corporate managers, application and product developers, project managers and technical managers will be on hand to reveal the latest trends and commercial developments in optical engineering, remote sensing, materials and devices, signal and image processing, illumination engineering, nanotechnology, x-ray optical technologies and related areas. Drexler founded the Foresight Institute, a nonprofit organization focused on nanotechnology, and is chief technical advisor to Nanorex, a company developing software for molecular engineering. He will discuss technical directions to be explored by the recently announced Technology Roadmap for Productive Nanosystems, a project led by an alliance of Battelle and the Foresight Nanotech Institute and sponsored by a wide variety of industry groups, and how present laboratory research can contribute to the development of productive nanosystems that first imitate and later exceed biological capabilities for molecular fabrication. Progress along this path will provide increasingly sophisticated components and systems for nanotechnology, leading to a revolution in fabrication technology, according to Drexler. Other plenary speakers will be Paras N. Prasad, a professor at the University at Buffalo and executive director of the multidisciplinary Institute for Lasers, Photonics and Biophotonics, on "Nanophotonics and Biomedical Applications"; Chennupati Jagadish, professor and head of the Semiconductor Optoelectronics and Nanotechnology Group at the Australian National University, "Quantum Dot Optoelectronic Devices"; Mamoun Muhammed, head of the Materials Chemistry Div., director of graduate studies in the materials science and engineering department and director of the international master's program on nanomaterials and nanotechnology, and vice chairman of the materials science and engineering department at the Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden, on "Design and Engineering of Nanoparticles"; Larry Dalton, a professor of chemistry and electrical engineering at the University of Washington and director of the National Science Foundation Science and Technology Center on Materials and Devices for Information Technology Research and the Department of Defense MURI Center on Polymeric Smart Skin Materials, "First Principles Design of Nanostructured, Electro-optic Organic Glasses"; and Barry Farmer, chief scientist for the Materials and Manufacturing Directorate, Air Force Research Lab, "Nanotechnology in the Air Force Research Laboratory." Also: Morley Stone, principal research biologist for the Air Force Research Laboratory and program manager with the Defense Sciences Office of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, "The Overlap of Bio- and Nano-Technologies: The Tie to Photonics and DoD Interest"; M. George Craford, CTO of LumiLeds Lighting, "LEDs for Solid-State Lighting and Other Emerging Applications"; and Michael R. Carter, chief scientist at the Office of Plans, Programs and Budget in the Science and Technology Directorate within the Department of Homeland Security, "The Role of Science and Technology in Radiological and Nuclear Countermeasures for Homeland Security." For more information, and to register, visit: www.spie.org/Conferences/Calls/05/am/