NanoSolveIT’s ambition is to advance nanoinformatics well beyond the state-of-the art by developing and implementing innovative modelling techniques and tools that will be integrated within NanoSolveIT IATA and then incorporated into a sustainable interoperable product, the NanoSolveIT e-platform, which will become an essential element for supporting industrial and regulatory nano-risk governance and the anticipated nano-risk governance council established in the EU H2020 NMBP-13-2018 call.

NanoSolveIT will develop a validated tiered IATA to identify the critical characteristics of nanomaterials responsible for their adverse effects on human health and the environment or for their functionalities in high-tech applications, and will implement a nanoinformatics-driven decision-support strategy based on innovative in silicomethods, models and tools. An important novel concept is the nanomaterial fingerprint – a set of descriptors and properties that can be predictively linked to nanomaterials properties, functionality and hazard by the development and integration of advanced nanoinformatics methods and tools.

Main Objectives

The NanoSolveIT objectives are:

• Collect publicly available data from different sources and curate, harmonise, FAIRify and integrate existing and emerging data on nanomaterials characterisation, release, exposure and biological and toxicological effects on human health and the environment.
• Deliver targeted datasets to gap-fill incomplete datasets and models after collation and procurement of all data available via consortium partners, based on experimental and/or in silico methods to strategically generate relevant nanomaterials characterisation, fate and transport data, release and exposure concentrations, and (eco)toxicological data to support model development and integration.
• Develop a set of validated and robust in silico methodologies for prediction of nanomaterials toxicity from biological descriptors and for AOP-based models, and for evaluation of quantitative characteristics of the bionano interface (hydrophobicity, NM-biomolecule interactions, surface activity, adsorption properties, etc.) via coupled materials models at different scales, relying only on the structural information about the nanomaterials and basic physicochemical properties.
• Implement the concept of NM fingerprints, an ambitious attempt to identify a set of nanodescriptors (physicochemical, omics, and computational) and properties that can be predictively linked to nanomaterials functionality, release/exposure and hazard.
• Develop and apply innovative nanoinformatics methods and techniques that are less reliant on animal testing.
• Establish the NanoSolveIT IATA that will incorporate relevant concepts and approaches into a sustainable multi-scale modelling framework for predictive nanomaterials risk assessment.
• Integrate all of the developed nanoinformatics tools into the NanoSolveIT e-platform, as the NanoSolveIT in silico nanosafety IATA suite, offered via Cloud or desktop versions, with a user-friendly interface linked to the EU Observatory for Nanomaterials.