By Lynn L. Bergeson and Carla N. Hutton on Posted in Federal,Research,United StatesThe U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) published a March 19, 2019, Federal Register notice announcing that it will hold a public hearing on May 1, 2019, to receive views from all interested parties about the CPSC’s agenda and priorities for fiscal years (FY) 2020, which begins on October 1, 2019, and 2021, which begins… Continue Reading
By Lynn L. Bergeson and Carla N. Hutton on Posted in Federal,Research,United StatesThe National Nanotechnology Initiative’s (NNI) 2019 public webinar series on the environmental, health, and safety effects of nanomaterials (nanoEHS) will begin on April 9, 2019, at 12:00 p.m. (EDT) with a presentation by Dr. Robert MacCuspie (Natural Immunogenics Corp.) on “Characterization and Quantification of Engineered Nanomaterials: Drivers of NanoEHS Research.” Upcoming webinars will include “Environmental,… Continue Reading
By Lynn L. Bergeson and Carla N. Hutton on Posted in International,Legal/Regulatory Issues,ResearchOn March 15, 2019, the European Commission’s (EC) Scientific Committee on Consumer Safety (SCCS) published its preliminary opinion on the solubility of synthetic amorphous silica (SAS). The EC asked whether the SCCS considers that SAS are soluble (100 milligram per liter (mg/L) or higher) or degradable/non-persistent in biological systems in light of the nanomaterial definition… Continue Reading
By Lynn L. Bergeson and Carla N. Hutton on Posted in International,Research,United StatesThe International Organization for Standardization (ISO) has published standard ISO/TR 21386, “Nanotechnologies — Considerations for the measurement of nano-objects and their aggregates and agglomerates (NOAA) in environmental matrices.” The standard provides some considerations for the collection of environmental samples to be analyzed for manufactured NOAA, considerations to distinguish manufactured NOAA from background levels of naturally… Continue Reading
By Lynn L. Bergeson and Carla N. Hutton on Posted in International,ResearchThe European Commission’s (EC) Joint Research Center (JRC) opens its scientific laboratories and facilities, including its Nanobiotechnology Laboratory, to people working in academia and research organizations, industry, and small and medium enterprises (SME). JRC opened a call on February 1, 2019, for the Nanobiotechnology Laboratory for the following priority topics: Nanomaterial characterization, including their interactions… Continue Reading
By Lynn L. Bergeson and Carla N. Hutton on Posted in Federal,Research,United StatesThe National Nanotechnology Coordination Office (NNCO) announced on February 28, 2019, that it is planning a number of activities to celebrate the 15-year anniversary of the National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI). Upcoming events will include: Special anniversary episodes of “Stories from the NNI” podcast series. Experts from academia, government, and industry share their perspectives on key… Continue Reading
By Lynn L. Bergeson and Carla N. Hutton on Posted in International,ResearchThe February 2019 issue of the European Chemicals Agency’s (ECHA) Newsletter includes an interview with Eva Valsami-Jones, Professor of Environmental Nanoscience at the University of Birmingham and leader of the European Union (EU) NanoSafety Cluster Coordination Team, on research on the safety of nanomaterials. The NanoSafety Cluster coordinates the funding of research projects at the… Continue Reading
By Lynn L. Bergeson and Carla N. Hutton on Posted in Federal,Research,United StatesOn February 21, 2019, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) posted a report entitled Science & Technology Highlights in the Second Year of the Trump Administration. The report highlights science and technology achievements, including the following under “R&D Fundamentals”: Supporting and celebrating key advances in nanotechnology. In December, OSTP’s National Nanotechnology… Continue Reading
By Lynn L. Bergeson and Carla N. Hutton on Posted in International,ResearchOn February 18, 2019, the European Union (EU) NanoSafety Cluster (NSC) announced that it is supporting the Malta Initiative by linking various projects with activities developed within the Malta Initiative. According to NSC’s website, the Malta Initiative began in 2017, when Germany approached the EU Directorate-General (DG) for Research and Innovation to request political and… Continue Reading
By Lynn L. Bergeson and Carla N. Hutton on Posted in International,Legal/Regulatory Issues,ResearchThe February 2019 issue of Computational Toxicology includes an article entitled “Grouping of multi-walled carbon nanotubes to read-across genotoxicity: A case study to evaluate the applicability of regulatory guidance.” The article describes a case study, performed by scientists at the European Commission’s (EC) Joint Research Center (JRC), to explore and illustrate read-across of genotoxicity data… Continue Reading
By Lynn L. Bergeson and Carla N. Hutton on Posted in International,ResearchThe European Union (EU) Observatory for Nanomaterials (EUON) conducts up to three studies annually. The studies are intended to address knowledge gaps relating to nanomaterials that are of interest to the general public and the research community. EUON announced on January 14, 2019, that it is now looking for topic suggestions that could be addressed… Continue Reading
By Lynn L. Bergeson and Carla N. Hutton on Posted in International,Research,United StatesThe December 2018 issue of the Journal of Nanoparticle Research includes an article entitled “A survey on the state of nanosafety research in the European Union and the United States.” According to the abstract, the authors surveyed researchers in the field of environmental safety and health of nanomaterials between September 2017 and January 2018 to… Continue Reading
By Lynn L. Bergeson and Carla N. Hutton on Posted in International,ResearchIn December 2018, the International Standardization Organization (ISO) published standard SO/TS 16195:2018, “Nanotechnologies — Specification for developing representative test materials consisting of nano-objects in dry powder form.” The standard specifies development of representative test materials consisting of nano-objects in dry powder form to enable test method development and improve comparability of data for nanotechnology applications.… Continue Reading
By Lynn L. Bergeson and Carla N. Hutton on Posted in International,Legal/Regulatory Issues,ResearchOn November 5, 2018, the European Commission’s (EC) Joint Research Center (JRC) announced the availability of the NANoREG Toolbox, an inventory of publicly available tools for the safety assessment of nanomaterials. As reported in our October 5, 2017, blog item, JRC first published the inventory as a Microsoft Excel®-based dataset. JRC scientists have now published… Continue Reading
By Lynn L. Bergeson and Carla N. Hutton on Posted in International,ResearchThe European Commission (EC) Joint Research Center (JRC) announced publication of a paper introducing a new standardized testing procedure for nanomaterial environmental toxicity, “Introducing a new standardized nanomaterial environmental toxicity screening testing procedure, ISO/TS 20787: aquatic toxicity assessment of manufactured nanomaterials in saltwater lakes using Artemia sp. nauplii.” The abstract states that the testing procedure… Continue Reading
By Lynn L. Bergeson and Carla N. Hutton on Posted in Federal,Legal/Regulatory Issues,Research,United StatesOn October 19, 2018, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) posted the Final Work Plan (FWP) for the nanosilver registration review process under the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA). The FWP explains what the Office of Pesticide Programs (OPP) “knows about nanosilver generally, highlighting anticipated data and assessment needs for each unique nanosilver… Continue Reading
By Lynn L. Bergeson and Carla N. Hutton on Posted in Federal,Research,United StatesThe National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI) has published key takeaways and a transcript for the September 19, 2018, webinar, “Technology Pathways Toward Commercializing Nanotechnology.” The webinar focused on quality control in the manufacturing process and built on NNI’s November 2017 Technology Pathways workshop. Webinar panelists Katherine Barton, Laboratory and Production Manager at Nano-C, and Doug Singer,… Continue Reading
By Lynn L. Bergeson and Carla N. Hutton on Posted in EU Member State,International,Occupational Health and Safety Issues,ResearchThe German Environment Agency (UBA) in October 2018 published a study entitled Health Effects of Ultrafine Particles: Systematic literature search and the potential transferability of the results to the German setting. The study notes that ultrafine particles represent the smallest size fractions of particles with sizes from one to about 100 nanometers in aerodynamic diameter. … Continue Reading
By Lynn L. Bergeson and Carla N. Hutton on Posted in International,Legal/Regulatory Issues,OECD,ResearchOn September 12-13, 2018, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), NanoReg2, and GRACIOUS hosted a “Scientific Workshop: Grouping of Nanomaterials.” The Workshop brought together 120 nanotechnology specialists from Europe, North America, and Asia to discuss a bottleneck in nanomaterials development and testing. The agenda and the following slides from the workshop have been… Continue Reading
By Lynn L. Bergeson and Carla N. Hutton on Posted in International,OECD,ResearchOn September 21, 2018, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) announced four new case studies on integrated approaches for testing and assessment (IATA), including a Case Study on Grouping and Read-Across for Nanomaterials — Genotoxicity of Nano-TiO2. The European Union (EU) Joint Research Center (JRC) developed the case study for the genotoxicity of… Continue Reading
By Lynn L. Bergeson and Carla N. Hutton on Posted in Federal,Research,United StatesOn September 26, 2018, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) will discuss the Fiscal Year 2019 Operating Plan. According to the Operating Plan, in fiscal year (FY) 2019, CPSC will continue supporting nanotechnology research and working with other federal agencies under the National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI) to minimize duplication and overlap of existing research… Continue Reading
By Lynn L. Bergeson and Carla N. Hutton on Posted in EU Member State,International,Occupational Health and Safety Issues,ResearchGermany’s Federal Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (BAuA) has published a report entitled Comparison of Inhalation and Intratracheal Instillation as Testing Methods for Characterisation of Granular Biopersistent Particles (GBP). In Project F 2364, researchers conducted an in vivo validation study to evaluate the consistency of data with results obtained in the preceding intratracheal instillation… Continue Reading
