Collection of Controlled Nanosafety Data-The CoCoN-Database, a Tool to Assess Nanomaterial Hazard.

Harald F Krug

doi:10.3390/nano12030441

Abstract

Hazard assessment is the first step in nanomaterial risk assessment. The overall number of studies on the biological effects of nanomaterials or innovative materials is steadily increasing and is above 40,000. Several databases have been established to make the amount of data manageable, but these are often highly specialized or can be used only by experts. This paper describes a new database which uses an already existing data collection of about 35,000 publications. The collection from the first phase between the years 2000 and 2013 contains about 11,000 articles and this number has been reduced by specific selection criteria. The resulting publications have been evaluated for their quality regarding the toxicological content and the experimental data have been extracted. In addition to material properties, the most important value to be extracted is the no-observed-adverse-effect-level (NOAEL) for in vivo and the no-observed-effect-concentration (NOEC) for in vitro studies. The correlation of the NOAEL/NOEC values with the nanomaterial properties and the investigated endpoints has been tested in projects such as the OECD-AOP project, where the available data for inflammatory responses have been analysed. In addition, special attention was paid to titanium dioxide particles and this example is used to show with searches for in vitro and in vivo experiments on possible lung toxicity what a typical result of a database query can look like. In this review, an emerging database is described that contains valuable information for nanomaterial hazard estimation and should aid in the progress of nanosafety research.

Highlights

The technical and chemical developments in nanotechnology have clearly demonstrated that the schedule from invention to market release has become much shorter compared to the last century
During the phase of programming the new CoCoN® database, more studies will be included taken from the pre-evaluated selection of both phases
The CoCoN® database is an attempt to process the already existing but very complex data collection in such a way that an easy and user-friendly retrieval of the study results is possible. This allows users of the database to enter their own queries and search for results for specific materials. This will allow the assessment of a potential hazard for nanomaterials or innovative materials and make the regulatory processes smoother and faster

Summary

Introduction

The technical and chemical developments in nanotechnology have clearly demonstrated that the schedule from invention to market release has become much shorter compared to the last century. The protection of the environment and human health against toxic chemicals or materials and regulatory demands have been intensified The combination of these two areas has conflict potential, information about new technological developments is needed to establish a comprehensive risk assessment for new chemicals and innovative materials [1,2]. In the case of nanotechnology, national and international action plans coordinate the funding of research on hazard and exposure of nanomaterials, e.g., the Nano Safety Cluster of the European Commission (https://www.nanosafetycluster.eu/, last access 8 December 2021). In the PubMed literature database, there exists more than 40,000 published studies on a huge variety of nanomaterials investigated in different biological models, such as animals, cell and tissue cultures or plants

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