Latest News
January 2015
Dr. Hickey and Dr. Tropsha will attend the Nanoinformatics 2015 workshop on January 27th. Dr. Hickey will present an update on the Nanomaterial Registry during a session on nanoinformatics tools state-of-the-science. We hope to see you there!
December 2014
Nature will begin a new author checklist in January 2015 focused on data reproducibility through thorough data sharing during publication. Read their editorial in Nature Nanotechnology for more information.
News Archive
October 2014
The NIH data-sharing requirements and how they relate to the Registry will be presented December 8th at the annual meeting of the Society for Risk Analysis (SRA) symposium for Nanoinformatics: Enabling and Applying the Linkage of Nanomaterials Datasets to Inform Decisions Related to Nano Risks. Let the team know if you will be in attendance by contacting us at nanoregistry@rti.org!
August 2014
An introduction to the Registry will be presented, on Oct. 6th, at the 12th
International Nanomedicine and Drug Delivery Symposium
(NanoDDS'14)
at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, by Dr. Hickey.
August 2014
A book chapter on the Nanomaterial Registry was recently published in the second
edition of Nanotechnology Environmental Health and Safety: Risks, Regulation, and
Management. Authors for the chapter - which summarizes the technical concepts of
the Registry (i.e. minimal information about nanomaterials, instance of
characterization, and compliance ratings) and outlines the Registry’s curation
process - include Kimberly Guzan, Dr. Vijay Gupta, Karmann Mills, and Dr. Michele
Ostraat.
July 2014
The Nanomaterial Registry has been renewed for another year of hosting by RTI
International via funding from the National Institutes of Health through contract
HHSN268201000022C.
April 2014
An introductory presentation on the Registry was given at the Annual Meeting of
the American Association for Cancer Research this month by Dr. Anthony Hickey,
our principal investigator in a session hosted by the National Cancer Institute’s
Dr. Stephanie Morris.
December 2013
The Registry’s principal consultant, Dr. Alex Tropsha, gave a presentation on the
Registry at the December workshop for the U.S.-EU Communities of Research.
More information on the six Communities of Research can be found at
their website.
October 2013
A new principal investigator and co-principal investigator have joined the Nanomaterial
Registry team! Please join us in welcoming Dr. Anthony Hickey and Dr. Alexander
Tropsha to the project and get to know them better by visiting our About the Registry page.
October 2013
Nanoinformatics 2013: Informatics for Nanomanufacturing will be held October 15
in Philadelphia, PA. This year’s workshop is sponsored by the National Nanomanufacturing
Network and will focus on assessing current activities and planning a future in
which informatics streamlines the nanomanufacturing enterprise. Kimberly Guzan,
the project manager for the Nanomaterial Registry, is one of the invited speakers.
March 2013
Meet the team! March 13-14, the Nanomaterial Registry will have a booth at the
Nanotech 2013 Expo
in Washington, D.C. During your visit to the booth, watch a video demonstration
of the website, browse the website live with a team member, and ask any questions
you may have about the project. This will also be a good opportunity to talk with
the team about your institution becoming a Registry Data Partner so that you can
soon see your own data on the Nanomaterial Registry website!
The Registry will also be presented in two talks during the Nanotech 2013 Conference.
The first, titled "Practical Data Sharing: The Nanomaterial Registry,"
will be presented Monday, May 13, at 4:10 PM in the
Nanotechnology Knowledge Infrastructure NNI Signature Initiative Symposium.
The second talk, titled "Characterizing the Minimal Information about Nanomaterials
and Bringing Data Together to Accelerate Discovery," will be presented Wednesday,
May 15, at 9:45 AM in the
Nanoscale Materials Characterization Symposium.
March 2013
UC CEIN and iPlant Collaborative will be holding a
one-day workshop
on May 7, 2013 for leveraging currently available cyberinfrastructure
capabilities for the fields of biology, plant science, nanotechnology and the environment.
June 2012
The Greener Nano 2012: Nanoinformatics
Tools and Resources Workshop, will be held in Portland, OR on July 30th.
Registration is open through July 15th.
May 2012
The U.S. Government Accountability Office has released a report, called Nanotechnology:
Improved Performance Information Needed for Environmental, Health, and Safety Research,
following a survey of nonfederal nanotechnology stakeholders examining the accountability
and effectiveness of federal funding for nanomaterial EHS research. For highlights
and the full report, visit the GAO
website.
May 2012
The fourth Nanotechnology Signature Initiative has been issued by the U.S. National
Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI) addressing the importance of informatics in the
advancement of the field of nanotechnology. The announcement and document can be
found at the NNI site.
April 2012
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has issued two draft Guidance documents
for the use of nanotechnology by food and cosmetics industries.
- Guidance for Industry: Assessing the Effects of Significant Manufacturing Process
Changes, including Emerging Technologies, on the Safety and Regulatory Status of
Food Ingredients and Food Contact Substances, Including Food Ingredients that are
Color Additives; and,
- Guidance for Industry: Safety of Nanomaterials in Cosmetic Products
For more information, see the
FDA press release
concerning both documents.
March 2012
The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy has issued a
report on public access to federally funded scientific research results,
produced by the National Science and Technology Council. The RFIs and the report
address access to digital data as well as public access to scholarly publications.
The NSTC has established working groups to develop coordinated access policies across
agencies, with research agencies participating in the discussions along with the
Library of Congress, the National Archives, OSTP, and other agencies. While specific
policies have not yet been recommended, the report notes that commenters overwhelmingly
supported free access to publicly funded non-classified research results, with a
one-year embargo period broadly seen as acceptable. The report notes the need for
continued dialog with publishers and the public on these issues.
February 2012
The European Comission Joint Research Centre (JRC) and the U.S. Personal Care Products
Council (PCPC), on behalf of the International Cooperation on Cosmetics Regulators
(ICCR), produced a report summarizing current methods for nanomaterial characterization,
but also concluded that none of these methods could, on their own, fully describe
a nanomaterial. The full report can be found
here.