Those of us who have been working in nanotechnology since the beginning of the decade have witnessed the remarkable growth and evolution of research into engineered nanomaterials' environmental, health and safety impacts. In 2001, there were virtually no papers addressing the impacts of intentionally manufactured nanomaterials.
Fast forward to now. This graph shows the explosive growth of research papers covering aspects of nano-EHS between 2001 and 2008. In a few short years we've gone from no data to, one could argue, too much data. Too much data, you say? Then explain why every newspaper article and policy report I read on the subject ends up saying basically the same thing: we still don't know enough about engineered nanomaterials to quantify risks.
The reasons are myriad and include the slow development and acceptance of standards for toxicity testing, materials characterization and even terminology; the dearth of validated protocols for testing; and other ripples of the culture clash that ensued when materials scientists, aerosol physicists, environmental engineers, and toxicologists all started to learn to collaborate.
People who have witnessed the emergence of other interdisciplinary fields of inquiry could have told us it would take some time to work out and then propagate the best research practices. But there seems to be a special urgency to nano-EHS research as governments, NGOs, companies, attorneys and other interested parties grapple with how this body of data should be used to inform decision-making. The various "solutions to the nano-EHS issue" being bandied about, including regulation, insurance policies, voluntary codes, risk markets, etc., all rely upon good quality data that is interpreted correctly. Journalists need to get a feel for what a reasonable community of experts thinks about this or that new paper that demonstrated the hazards of a particular nanomaterial in a particular laboratory experiment.
In short, context and analysis are critical.
Once upon a time, ICON thought it could provide this context and, indeed, we've produced a few backgrounders that review and analyze hot topics in nano-EHS. But this function is best performed by the community at large, those of you who are also wrestling with questions about choice of medium, dose, exposure route, particle sizing technique and other minutiae of life in the lab.
Starting this week, the ICON Virtual Journal aims to provide you the opportunity to shape future nano-EHS research practice by commenting on papers in our database. Despite an overwhelmingly positive response to this idea from people we surveyed during the conception and development phase, there remains some discomfort with the idea of people passing judgment on papers that have already passed through peer review. (Because we all know the peer review process is perfect.) Here are the top two reasons your peers gave for wanting this rating system:
Papers of high quality should be recognized so they can serve as models for other researchers in this field
This will help journalists, the public and other lay audiences know which research is the best, which will inform the public dialogue over nano’s risks and benefits
Now what could be wrong with recognizing papers of outstanding quality so that the field as a whole gravitates toward the best practices and people on the outside understand the implications of new work? Yes, yes, we still have issues to work out with respect to standards, etc. but in addition to giving a snapshot of where the field is now, the ratings could actually advance the discussion of best practices and broaden it to include underrepresented voices. "You may say I'm a dreamer. But I'm not the only one."
Unless you're a troll, I invite you to register at the site and rate 5 papers with which you are very familiar. Then email 10 colleagues and encourage them to do the same. (Start with the cranky ones who are always griping to you about the @#^% that gets published these days in the vanity journals.) Choose a non-identifying username if you want (students seeking future employment) or publish under your own name as a way of demonstrating how smart and thoughtful you are (consultants, tenured professors). Either way, we'll be able to pull inappropriate content off the site as needed.
The American Industrial Hygiene Association held its annual meeting this year in Toronto with a theme of Discoveries Beyond Borders. After the Monday morning keynote address by Dr. Peter Diamandis, chairman and CEO of the X PRIZE Foundation, the next two keynotes were on issues AIHA has identified as “two major challenges in the field: sustainability and nanotechnology.” Addressing the issue of sustainability was Edward L. Quevedo, JD, special counsel chair for the sustainability group at Farella Braun and Martel. (An interview with Mr. Quevedo about his keynote is posted here.)
My talk kicked off Wednesday’s focus on nanotechnology. Before and after the keynote talk I was able to hang out at NIOSH’s exposition booth where I was graciously provided an internet-connected computer on which to live-demo the GoodNanoGuide to passersby. But the invitation to speak before a crowd of about 1000 occupational safety professionals provided an ideal opportunity to formally launch the GoodNanoGuide, an international online collaborative wiki designed to create a forum for people seeking to work with engineered nanomaterials safely. The format of the keynote address did not allow for questions, so AIHA set aside a separate time and place for an “Ask the Expert” session later on Wednesday morning. This session was attended by about a hundred people and we eschewed the formal structure of me sitting up on a dais for a more informal conversational mode. This involved me running up and down the aisles passing the microphone back and forth among the questioners, myself and others in the audience better equipped to answer a given question. (Most times, this was Chuck Geraci, Laura Hodson or Donna Heidel from NIOSH who could report on specific research being done at the institute to inform occupational practice.)
Feedback to the talk and to the GoodNanoGuide was positive and we noted a major spike in visits to the site during the meeting. But even more importantly, we are already beginning to field requests to join the GoodNanoGuide community. (We map their locations here.) This is vital because the site will only grow into the knowledge base we all want it to become if a diverse and robust community of experts contributes. Join us by visiting the GoodNanoGuide here and registering as a contributor.
I need your help. ICON is preparing a modification to our Virtual Journal of Nano-EHS to allow users to rate papers they have read. While our survey on this topic generated an overwhelmingly positive response, we recognize that allowing the community to rate papers that have already passed through peer review is potentially sensitive. We want to make it clear that thoughtful, incisive commentary is welcome and trolls will be banned. Please help by submitting your thoughts on how to construct a useful Comment Guidelines policy that helps raters understand the purpose of the ratings and the "rules" for playing nice in the sandbox. If there are good examples out there relevant to scientific discussions (as opposed to consumer product sites such as Amazon) that would be helpful as well.
Here is my first pass at a Comment Guidelines policy.
Only rate papers you have read. Merely reading the abstract is not enough to evaluate a paper’s merits. ICON provides a link to the paper’s listing in the source journal where you may find it posted in its entirety or can purchase it if you are not a subscriber. We are unable to provide you with copies of papers in the VJ.
Only rate papers you are qualified to assess. This resource allows people with knowledge of nanomaterials, metrology, toxicology, environmental impact, etc. to bring that expertise to bear in evaluating the technical literature. If you are unfamiliar with the subject matter or the methods, don’t rate the paper.
Refrain from rating your own papers. If you are an author, please do not rate your own work. (Or get your mother or cousin or fishing buddy to do so.) You may leave a response to other raters in the comments box, in which case you should identify yourself as an author. Evaluate each paper on its scientific merits. Well-meaning people can disagree about the attributes of the ideal nano-EHS paper. But well-meaning people do not slam a paper because the author prevailed over them in a proposal competition or turned them down for a post-doc position. If you are pursuing any agenda other than well-intentioned critique of nano-EHS research, do so elsewhere. For guidance on rating papers, please review our Recommended Criteria for Rating Papers in the Virtual Journal.
Use common courtesy and tact. Be professional, especially when submitting a less than flattering review. Remember, nano-EHS researchers are people too. Specific, constructive feedback will be received better than withering criticism. Substantive, well-written comments will earn you a following in the VJ as people seek out trusted experts to help them filter through the literature.
Do not pass yourself off as someone else. You are free to choose a username that obscures your identity but do not choose one that falsely identifies you as another real person or associates you with an organization with which you have no affiliation. Do not misrepresent the sector in which you work.
Do not abuse the comment box. The comment box is not the place to plug your work, promote your blog, sell your product, hurl insults, use profane language, etc. Any comments that are deemed inappropriate can be flagged and will be removed. Offenders will be barred from posting.
I spent most of yesterday in a dimly lit room of Houston's George R. Brown Convention Center, attending the EHS track of the NSTI Nanotech 2009 conference, for which I organized the afternoon session on workplace practices. I have done this kind of thing before for NSTI, having put together a session on Nanotechnology and Society for the 2005 meeting in Anaheim. What a difference four years makes.
Then: Keynotes focused on enormous potential of nanotech to solve societal problems. Now: Keynote speaker from Bayer Materials Science spent much of his time talking about safety, minimizing exposure and engineering controls before getting to Baytubes.
Then: The EHS session was billed as a special symposium and was a hodgepodge of science, standards, regulation and policy. Now: The EHS session was a stand-alone track and there were enough submissions to have separate sessions on toxicology, workplace practices and regulatory/policy issues.
Then: This session garnered a smallish crowd. Now: The room was packed for toxicology and full enough for occupational practices.
Then: The crowd was excited about nanotech's potential but curious about why we needed to discuss "societal" impacts. Now: The attendees were savvy about the complexity of issues associated with understanding nanomaterials' impacts.
On that last point, I was pleased to hear attendees pressing the toxicology speakers during Q&A to be explicit about what type of nanomaterials were tested, what dose metrics were employed, whether residual metal particles were present, etc. The questions demonstrated a level of sophistication not seen back in 2005 when most people wanted to know: Are these things dangerous or not?
OK so one person asked Val Vallyathan, a NIOSH researcher talking about the nanotube-asbestos comparison, the naive question, "So, are carbon nanotubes 'the next asbestos' or not?" To which he replied, "The current studies are inconclusive. We can't say without systematic studies varying the dose, animal model, etc."
I know there are now whole meetings devoted to nanoEHS research, and that societies such as SOT are offering extended tracks on nanotoxicology. One of my colleagues in the nanoEHS space said that he goes to a lot of these meetings where he feels like he's preaching to the choir. The NSTI meeting has always had a more optimistic, business development, applications orientation where raising safety issues can feel more like missionary work in hostile territory. So seeing the EHS issue penetrate the NSTI meeting to this extent leads me to the conclusion that these communities are finally coming together in a way that bodes well for nanomaterial stewardship. Back to the meeting!
ten individuals with substantial expertise in environmental, health and safety issues related to engineered nanomaterials. We expect these individuals to play leading roles in nanotechnology law and business.
I am pleased to report that five out of the ten experts listed participate on ICON's steering or executive committee.
BUILDING A BETTER MOUSETRAP: PATENTING BIOTECHNOLOGY IN THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITYVicki Colvin (Rice University), Barbara Karn (US EPA), Kristen Kulinowski (me, Rice University), Andrew Maynard (Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies), and Mary Beth Miller (Unidym).
Thanks to all these experts for their contributions to ICON and the wider NanoEHS community. And thanks to Matthew Jaffe for sending this news along.
The Nanotech Conference and Expo 2009 (May 3-7) organized by NSTI promises to be a week filled with nano goodness. For those who haven't yet planned every last minute here is a schedule of activities that ICON is hosting or involved with:
Monday 1:30-3:30 pmEHS Workplace Practices [Room 351 CF]
[This is part of a whole track on EHS that begins at 10:30 am with a session on Nano Toxicology Studies]
Tuesday 2:00-4:00 pm I will be in the Expo [Rice Booth 901] to answer questions about CBEN or ICON.
5:00-6:00 pm ICON reception at the Expo [Rice Booth 901]
Wednesday 10:30 am GoodNanoGuide Sneak Preview [Room 361 CF]: A hands-on demo of our newest project. Please bring your wireless-enabled laptop to take the GoodNanoGuide for a spin.
Janelia Farm, a Howard Hughes Medical Institute located outside Washington, DC, was the picturesque setting of HHMI’s annual Environmental Health & Safety Directors Conference. The theme this year: Nanotechnology and the New Economy—Modern Challenges in ES&H Management. In the audience were about 50 high-level EHS managers at universities that are part of the HHMI network. The level of prior knowledge about nanotechnology was mixed. As we learned, some were very knowledgeable, others knew in which labs nanotech research was being pursued at their institutions, and a few had little more than passing knowledge.
The science keynote address was given by Drew Endy, PhD, assistant professor of bioengineering at Stanford University. A very interesting and provocative speaker (though in an unassuming way), Endy gave a series of slides he calls “postcards” outlining the ways in which synthetic biology is being developed. His presentation style consisted of speaking to the audience using slides with minimal content, except when needed to illustrate a technical point. (I liked this approach better than the “stuff lots of content onto your slides so people would not even have had to be there to get the gist. Which usually doesn’t work.) So quotable was he that my Twitterstream on this (#HHMIEHS) does a better job capturing the highlights than I can do here. Suffice it to say that Endy effectively presented a lot of the cutting edge developments in synbio, if he fell a tad short on offering advice to EHS managers about how to handle safety issues in their institutions. The closest he came was an illustration of a student’s home-brew synbio lab, constructed in her bedroom closet, in which her coat was clearly visible among the instruments. I had the same reaction to his talk that I had to the synbio thread at last summer’s GRC on Science and Technology in Society: Wow.
My session was entitled, “Nanotechnology & Safety Management—A New Relationship”. Joining me were Jo Anne Shatkin, PhD, Managing Director of CLF Ventures and Charles Geraci, PhD, CIH, Coordinator of the Nanotechnology Program at the US National Institute of Occupational Safety & Health (NIOSH). Given the content of our prepared remarks the three of us decided we had been placed in the agenda in the wrong order and staged a soft coup the morning of the meeting, rearranging ourselves in a more sensible order. Questions were held until the end of our talks.
Thus it was that Jo Anne started off the session with a nice overview of nanotechnology and the attendant issues that complicate an assessment of its health and safety impacts. She outlined her approach to risk assessment of nanomaterials, presented in more detail in her new book, “Nanotechnology: health and environmental risks.”
Chuck Geraci was up next, giving a thorough account of NIOSH’s many activities in nanotechnology. He spent some time describing a simple framework for identifying occupational safety issues, summarizing some of NIOSH’s recent toxicological research, including recent work presented at the SOT meeting showing long-straight multi-walled carbon nanotubes penetrating the pleural lining (AKA “The Image”). NIOSH commentary on this work can be found at the NIOSH blog. He ended by plugging the updated guidance document along with a recent document on medical surveillance programs, both available at the NIOSH nanotechnology page.
Faced with a room full of EHS Directors gathered to hear the latest about nanotechnology, what else could I do but talk at some length about the GoodNanoGuide? I gave my pitch, walked through a brief live demo of the site and invited them to participate.
For once, the schedule was constructed to allow for a generous Q&A session, even considering that collectively we went over our allotted speaking time. (In too many of these meetings, “panel” equates to “speakers talking too long leaving audience little to no time for questions.” The ABA CLE was like this.) And this audience availed itself of every minute. Among the discussion threads we pursued were
The state of knowledge of occupational practices as they relate to medical applications of nanotechnology [a natural for this audience]
Whether control banding should be applied to nanomaterials and which form might be best
How to get wayward academics to understand and enforce good occupational practices in their labs [lots of grumbling about the tyranny of the academic overlords (PhD faculty) who fail to appreciate the humble servants that are only trying to help them (EHS managers).]
Whether biosafety protocols should be in place for labs working with nanomaterials. [Setting up a Level 1-4 type of containment system similar to that used by labs working with known or potential pathogens.]
This last question caught the three of us somewhat flat-footed. It is not a concept I have heard discussed in many other forums on nano-safety. I suppose EHS managers who deal with medical research think more about biosafety than many others in the nanotechnology community who have more of a chemical safety mindset. The question is whether the biosafety approach can be justified, and for which types of nano research. One obvious difference between current nanomaterials and, say, the Ebola virus, is that today’s nanomaterials are still largely the Phase 1 “passive” materials presented in Mike Roco’s much disseminated scheme. Until we progress to the later stages of nanotechnology we should not be overly concerned with nanoparticles multiplying.
Response to our session was very positive and I expect to hear from many of these people again as we all grapple with the occupational issues surrounding academic nanotechnology research. Plus, Janelia Farm is a very cool place to visit.
I spent a lovely weekend in Phoenix recently, courtesy of the American Bar Association's 18th Annual Spring Continuing Legal Education meeting. The theme of the Tort Trial & Insurance Practice Section's CLE this year was It's a Small World After All: From nanotechnology to global warming--A quantum leap from buckyballs to carbon footprints. (Nothing nano about that meeting title!)
Dr. Ruddy gave his perspective on the broad diversity of nano-based medicines currently on the market or under development, arguing against a “one-size-fits-all” approach to regulation. Elan has launched four nanotechnology based drug products in the US since 2001. He asserted that FDA’s regulatory review process for new drug products appears adequate for nanotechnology-based drug products such as liposomes, nano emulsions and engineered drug nanoparticles but may need to be evaluated periodically as more complex drug products emerge.
George Kimbrell struck a strongly precautionary tone, which should come as no surprise to people familiar with CTA’s work in nanotechnology. [They have filed a number of petitions to FDA and EPA urging them to interpret their regulatory authority more broadly.] He highlighted nanosilver and nanoscale sunscreen ingredients as products of particular concern and called for more federal funding for environmental, health and safety (EHS) research, faster response by federal agencies charged with regulatory oversight, and a stronger regulatory framework that protects workers, the general public and the environment from the impacts of nanomaterials throughout their lifecycle.
Fionna Mowat, an expert in exposure assessment, presented a case study comparing carbon nanotubes and asbestos. Tort lawyers in particular understand the implications of a material showing asbestos-like behaviors. She reviewed three recent papers comparing multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) to asbestos, two of which were reviewed in an ICON backgrounder published last year.The third paper, published this year, investigated the effect of injecting MWCNTs intrascrotally into rats. After identifying similarities and differences between MWCNTs and asbestos fibers she argued for more research and a more nuanced understanding of the potential exposures to MWCNTs throughout the lifecycle.
I spoke last, focusing my remarks on the information needs assessment workshops ICON has convened over the last two years. I previewed some of the conclusions and recommendations of our most recent workshop on Eco-Responsible Design and Disposal of Engineered Nanomaterials, held in Houston in March 2009. One of the working groups focused their attention on regulatory issues for nanomaterial disposal raising questions about whether nanomaterials can leak out of landfill liners, calling for more research into potential impacts of antimicrobial nanoparticles on waste treatment plants, and policies for dealing with nanomaterials in construction and demolition materials, which are often recycled. More information about the workshop’s conclusions and recommendations is forthcoming when the full report is published. Meanwhile, for those who can't wait another moment, Chemical & Engineering News, who embedded a reporter in the two-day workshop, published a summary of views presented and conclusions drawn.
Despite the lower-than-normal level of attendance (blamed on the economy) the question and answer period was lively and it was clear that this was many people’s first serious introduction to the subject of nanotechnology. It is no exaggeration to say that our panel, with its diversity of viewpoints was an eye-opener for attorneys who represent plaintiffs and defendants alike. Afterwards, Ms. Curry confirmed that the tort community is behind the knowledge curve on nanotechnology and that our session accomplished her goal of beginning to inform them about this emerging topic.
The American Industrial Hygiene Conference and Expo (AIHce) will be held this year between May 30–June 4 in Toronto, CA. The theme of Discoveries without Borders dovetails nicely with the two sessions being offered on sustainability and nanotechnology. (I will be presenting on global challanges to nano-EHS on Wednesday, June 4.) This article, AIHce: A Value in Economy, is obviously aimed at generating healthy attendance at what is no doubt a key revenue generator for the AIHA. However, the title got me thinking about the role of occupational safety in tough economic times. As companies trim every possible ounce of fat from their budgets, they have an obligation not to skimp on workplace safety for their employees and responsible safeguards for the environment. Doing this in a nanotechnology-related enterprise can be challenging, not because there is little will, but because good guidance can be difficult to find and interpret. That makes it even more important for those with knowledge to distribute it as broadly as possible. A good place to start for those in North America (AIHA's key constituency) is with the nanotechnology pages at NIOSH and IRSST. We hope that the GoodNanoGuide will serve as a resource for companies as well when it goes public this summer.
The International Council on Nanotechnology is a multistakeholder forum for developing and communicating information about nanomaterial risk. Please visit us at http://icon.rice.edu.
The reasons are myriad and include the slow development and acceptance of standards for toxicity testing, materials characterization and even terminology; the dearth of validated protocols for testing; and other ripples of the culture clash that ensued when materials scientists, aerosol physicists, environmental engineers, and toxicologists all started to learn to collaborate.
