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. NanoCommons will establish a single integrated resource for nanoinformatics data in which different stakeholders (e.g. scientists, regulators, NGOs, industries, etc.) can have confidence that it is both up-to-date and self-consistent.
NanoCommons will thus:
- facilitate faster identification of potential NM-related risks through integrating data from across the entire real-life nanosafety workflow and through development and application of a suite of innovative computational approaches such as Physicochemical-Biological Read-Across (PcBRA), Deep Learning strategies (“Introspective Machine Learning”) and response surface mapping strategies in reduced dimensional representations and quantitative structure activity relationships (QSARs) including prediction of NMs uptake, localisation and therapeutic potential (to integrate with EU-NCL for example);
- enable ‘safe-by-design’ approaches through QSAR & read across development coupled with ‘design of experiments’ tools to map NMs physicochemical descriptors linked with increased/reduced hazard profiles and exposure modelling.
- support regulatory decision making by ensuring data integration, enrichment and use for predictive modelling to assess “sameness”, allow read-across & implementation of real safe-by-design strategies. These advancements can only be achieved by the project’s unique partnership, each participant being selected for being at the top of the relevant R&D and networking activities internationally.
1 January 2018 – 30 June 2022