Shaping the NanoFASE Portal to Manage Nanomaterials Stock, Orders and Data

WP3 (Iseult Lynch, University of Birmingham) ENM Supply, Transformation and Metrology for Experimental Studies

NanoFASE uses industry-produced nanomaterials for realism, and bespoke synthesized particles suitable for more controlled experiments. All the studies undertaken across our empirical work packages produce data to parameterise the NanoFASE fate and exposure models. Partners use the NanoFASE-tailored Biomax platform to order the nanomaterials (NMs) needed for their experiments. Material Safety Data Sheets (MSDS), shipping and characterization data are all present in our Biomax portal so that partners can download everything required, and we are in the process of generating templates for data capture to facilitate the upload and preservation of all experimental data.

Through this centralized platform all NanoFASE partners are aware of which NMs are being used in which experiments across the consortium.  WP3 collaborates with the empirical work packages to enlarge the characterization templates, assembling descriptions and state-of-the-art images of pristine particles, as well as the protocols for how the data was generated.  Together, these will form a fantastic resource capturing the great diversity of distinct information produced by our complex multimedia studies and needed for the modelling tools. 

Within the portal, data query allows multiple interrogations of the data so that, for example, a list can be obtained of "which organisms were exposed to which particles". Our empirical scientists can then design their respective experiments accordingly to ensure inter-comparability of the overall dataset. Our Industry partners can obtain detailed characterization data and information on the experimental use of the particles they supplied or which otherwise interest them.

Read our previous update to get details on which nanomaterials are being utilized in the different aspects of the NanoFASE project, and where the major synthesis challenges have arisen.  A paper is under preparation describing the lessons learnt in the difficult effort to chemically dope TiO2 NMs through a core-(double)-shell approach.

 

        

Xianjin Cui synthesizes our bespoke particles and Tassos Papadiamantis is doing the bulk of work adapting the Biomax platform.

WP3 is also using a database approach to prepare the deliverable D3.4 "Protocols and SOPs for engineered nanomaterials (ENM) characterization in all environmental compartments". All the empirical work packages feed a working list of protocols and sub-protocols that is presently grouped into the following categories (allowing that several might be linked to make a final protocol):

• Pre-exposure
• Exposure
• Post-exposure sampling / storage
• End-point measurement

When different methods are used to measure the same end-point, or different approaches are used for dispersing depending on specific conditions, each of these is added as a separate protocol.  Some protocols will be accompanied by short demonstration videos shared among NanoFASE scientists.

"Even if partners are not refining a given protocol in NanoFASE, we find it best to include each one in the listing – if we use it, we need it!" says WP3 leader Iseult Lynch. To ensure complete coverage NanoFASE scientists are encouraged to add any needed grouping or category. The public deliverable D3.4, planned for Summer 2018 under the responsibility of UniVie, will form a valuable compendium of protocols and enrich the NanoFASE Clickable Framework showcasing how the various pieces of data for the model are generated.

As the project progresses a similar exercise is carried out for D3.5 "Characterisation dossiers for ENMs, Functional Fate Group (FFG)-transformed ENMs and case studies", linking the supplied pristine forms through to materials transformed in the various environmental reactors studied by NanoFASE. The final deliverable D3.6 by University of Birmingham and partners will be an ENM "Functional Fate Classification System and Handbook of Functional Assays".

At term the extensive experimental data collected and structured by NanoFASE will be rendered FAIR: Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Re-usable, across Europe and beyond.

Learn about NanoFASE contributions to European nanosafety harmonisation and the European Union Observatory on Nanomaterials (EUON).