Regis McKenna, chairman of strategy consulting firm The McKenna Group, has joined the board of directors at Nanosys. McKenna built his reputation with work specializing in the application of information and telecommunications technologies to business strategies.

McKenna helped launch such technological innovations as the first microprocessor (Intel Corp.), the first personal computer (Apple Computer), the first biotechnology drug (Genentech) and the first retail computer store (The Byte Shop). He has also worked with a number of entrepreneurial start-ups that went on to big things, including America Online, Compaq, Electronic Arts, Linear Technology, Lotus, Microsoft, National Semiconductor, Silicon Graphics, WebLogic and Caliper Technologies. McKenna was included in the San Jose Mercury News' Millennium 100 as one of the 100 people who made Silicon Valley what it is today.

"During his 30-year career, Regis has worked with hundreds of high-tech companies, many of whom grew to be today's technology giants," said Larry Bock, President and CEO of Nanosys. "His background and expertise in the strategic marketing of breakthrough technologies will be invaluable to Nanosys as we move forward."

Bock himself is a serial entrepreneur who has left his mark all over the life sciences industry, where he started, among others, Caliper Technologies.

"The exciting advances in the rapidly growing field of nanotechnology are transforming areas as diverse as chemical sensing, data storage and miniaturization of semiconductors," McKenna said. "Nanosys, with its broad intellectual property portfolio, is well positioned to dominate this space for the foreseeable future. I look forward to working with the outstanding team assembled by the founders of Nanosys."

Nanosys is developing nanotechnology systems that incorporate novel and patent-protected zero and one-dimensional nanometer-scale materials such as nanowires, nanotubes and nanodots (quantum dots) as their principal active elements.