NanoS-QM

The NanoS-QM project aims to develop and test quality and description standards for research data in the field of nano safety research. These standards will create the basis for optimized risk assessment and thus greater safety in the application of nanoparticles. Nanoparticles can be found today in almost all areas of work and life. For example, they make touchscreens conductive, increase the storage capacity of batteries, improve the compatibility of drugs and make components lighter and more stable. Their increased use means that more and more people come into contact with them.

At 1 to 100 nanometers, nanoparticles are similar in size to some viruses or medical drug molecules. This raises serious questions: What influence do nanoparticles have on the reactions in human cells? What properties must they have to be safe? And what is the best way to make the related scientific data usable and comparable?

In order to produce safe nanoparticles and understand their effects, researchers from a wide range of scientific disciplines must work closely together. This results in multidisciplinary research data, for example

  • for production and characterization of materials with regard to application potential (functionality), but also in terms of material properties under biologically/physiologically relevant conditions,
  • in the detection of materials in biological systems to determine structural mechanisms of action or the exposure of the biological target,
  • when research into biological mechanisms of action and toxicologically relevant effects of nanomaterials is carried out,
  • when toxicological test results for risk assessment and regulation are provided,
  • in the validation of in vitro assays using in vivo experiments  and
  • in the development of test systems with relevance for regulatory toxicology.

The objectives of NanoS-QM include formulated and published quality criteria for interdisciplinary research on nano safety, also in the form of Standard Operation Procedures (SOP), and the further development of regulatory standards or their drafting in areas where no generally accepted standards exist to date.

In close cooperation with our partners, the e-Research unit will develop a modular, interoperable metadata schema for the description of heterogeneous research data. This will result in a concept for the collection of metadata along the research data life cycle, which will be validated in a subsequent prototypical testing of electronic lab books.

The Information Service Engineering unit develops project-relevant ontologies and implements them with quality assurance (terminological knowledge). From this, a NanoS-QM knowledge graph is created and a concept for its ongoing maintenance and enhancement is developed, also beyond the duration of the project.

Project data

Publications

  • Elberskirch, Linda; …; Binder, Kunigunde; Bonatto Minella, Christian; Razum, Matthias et al.: How Structured Metadata Acquisition Contributes to the Reproducibility of Nanosafety Studies: Evaluation by a Round-Robin Test, Nanomaterials, 2022; Vol. 12, 1053; Keywords: Interlaboratory Comparison, Description Standards, Nanosafety Studies, DOI: 10.3390/nano12071053
  • Binder, Kunigunde; Bonatto Minella, Christian; Elberskirch, Linda; Kraegeloh, Annette; Liebing, Julia; Petzold, Christiane; Razum, Matthias; Riefler, Norbert; Schins, Roel; Sofranko, Adriana; van Thriel, Christoph; Unfried, Klaus (2021). Discussion on Existing Standards and Quality Criteria in Nanosafety Research - In Summary of the NanoS-QM Expert Workshop. http://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4584790
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Contact

Matthias Razum

Chief Information Officer Vice President e-Research (temp.)
Phone:
+49 7247 808 457
+49 7247 808 457
matthias.razum [at] fiz-karlsruhe.de