Posted: October 16, 2007

Experts discussed issues of nanotechnology risk management

(Nanowerk News) Experts from government, academia, consulting companies, non-profit organizations and industry convened at NanoTX 07 earlier this month to discuss issues of nanotechnology risk management.
In a featured presentation, Dr. John Balbus, Chief Health Scientist at Environmental Defense , reviewed the state of the science with regards to nanotoxicology in “Quantum Leaps: Knowledge gaps in nanotechnology health and safety". He pointed to early surprises and indications of potential novel mechanisms of toxicity.
Environmental Defense, the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and the Center for Biological and Environmental Nanotechnology at Rice University co-chaired two panel discussions and provided cutting edge information to attendees interested in the business benefits of managing nanotechnology risk.
In the first session, experts from the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health, the University of Minnesota and Texas Safety Instruments discussed the latest developments in workplace monitoring and protection.
The second panel featured discussion of several risk management frameworks that have been developed for companies to assess and reduce potential health and safety risks of their products. The discussion included a presentation by CFL on lifecycle-based nanomaterials screening tool presented by CFL, an approach to assessment exposure potential that stressed the utility of knowledge of the behavior of analogous materials to predict exposure potential to nanoparticles presented by Gradient, as well as the NanoSafe framework for small businesses and the Nano Risk Framework for both large and small enterprises.
Source: Environmental Defense