NanoCommons

NanoCommons is rated 3 out of 5 in the category nanotechnology. Read and write reviews about NanoCommons. Read-across approaches, which are currently absent for NMs, in large part as a result of data fragmentation and inaccessibility, would reduce the cost of nanosafety research and regulation dramatically by removing the need for extensive laboratory and animal testing. The availability of a nanosafety knowledge infrastructure, that organises and visualises data and data relationships, makes it accessible, integrates computational tools for risk assessment and decision support, enables their validation and facilitates the necessary grouping will be a critical factor in reducing regulatory costs. The H2020 Infrastructures project, NanoCommons, addresses this gap by creating a community framework and infrastructure for reproducible science, and in particular in silico workflows for nanomaterials and beyond, by: (i) integration and federation of existing NMs characterisation and interaction mechanisms for knowledge, protocols and data (beyond simple toxicity), along with quality assurance criteria and underpinning ontologies (ii) compilation, development and expert support of computational tools for mechanistic and statistical modelling, read-across, grouping, safe-by-design and life cycle assessment to the broader user community, and benchmarking of their predictive power; and (iii) provision of (remote) access to its KnowledgeBase, modelling toolbox and workflow optimisation and supporting expertise to facilitate commercialisation of nanotechnology-derived products. In any case, cross-field (academia, industry, regulatory) collaboration and voluntary knowledge exchange is needed to promote nanosafety research and create a successful scientific environment.