A product of the A World Of Surprises project with James King and a bunch of extremely talented public health and science students.

The task was to explore the confluence between mundane and catastrophic risk, which the team does beautifully.  Love the technique, and the subtle touches (note the progressive effect of Rhino Bananas on their creator).  And the news/web mockups are priceless.  Brilliant!

[Make sure you watch to the quote at the end]

Many thanks to:

• Chad Warhola
• Janae Adams
• Anirudha Rathnam
• Sarah Kang
• Alejandro Mendoza

(Needless to say, this is a bit of speculative fiction!)

Last semester, speculative designer James King worked with myself and a small group of science and public health students at the University of Michigan to explore how a fusion of science and creative art can lead to new insights and modes of communication.  The exercise was part of the A World of Surprises project – a project James is working on as the Witt Artist in residence at the UM School of Art and Design.

Part of the aim was to take these science-grounded students out of their comfort zone, expose them to some radical new ideas and perspectives, and see what happens.

The results were impressive!  Once the students realized that they weren’t bound by the rigid limitations of their science education, they became enthused over using creative techniques to tell science-grounded stories that connected with people on a far deeper level than just the facts would allow.

Today the group presented the fruits of their final assignment: to produce a piece of creative work that captures the tension – in narrative form – between imagined catastrophic risks and experienced mundane risks. As a group, we were interested in the tension between the catastrophic consequences often imagined to arise from human endeavors, and the mundane reality that often develops.

I’ll try to showcase all of the projects over the next few weeks.  They were all, in their own way, quite brilliant.  Coming up in future posts there will be:

• The Tale of Rhino Banana (a brilliant story of a technological breakthrough that runs up against public resistance);
• Salutary lessons from the struggle between evil and the divine in the middle ages;
• A visual juxtaposition of comparative risks related to Fukushima; and
• A new-future story of technological sophistication and mundane consequences.

(I’ll add the links as they are posted – The Tale of Rhino Banana will be up first)

James will be back in Ann Arbor for the culmination of the A World Of Surprises project in March – stay tuned on that.

]]> http://2020science.org/2012/02/04/exploring-speculated-catastrophe-and-mundane-reality/feed/ 1 http://2020science.org/2012/01/25/national-academy-publishes-new-nanomaterials-risk-research-strategy/ http://2020science.org/2012/01/25/national-academy-publishes-new-nanomaterials-risk-research-strategy/#comments Wed, 25 Jan 2012 23:38:00 +0000 Andrew Maynard http://2020science.org/?p=4587

The US National Academy of Science today published its long-awaited Research Strategy for Environmental, Health, and Safety Aspects of Engineered Nanomaterials. I won’t comment extensively on the report as I was a member of the committee that wrote it.  But I did want to highlight a number of aspects of it that I think are particularly noteworthy:

Great progress so far, but it’s time to change gears. Something we grappled with as a committee was what the value of yet another research strategy was going to be.  After all, it wasn’t so long ago that the US federal government published a well received strategy of its own.  A key driver behind our strategy was a sense that the past decade has been one of defining the challenges we face as the field of nanotechnology develops, while the next decade will require more focus as an ever greater number of nanotechnology-enabled products hit the market.  In other words, from a research perspective it’s time to change gears, building on past work but focusing on rapidly emerging challenges.

Combining life cycle and value chain in a single framework for approaching nanomaterial risk research.  As a committee, we spent considerable time developing a conceptual framework for approaching research addressing the health and environmental impacts of engineered nanomaterials.  What we ended up using was a combination of value chain – ranging from raw materials to intermediate products to final products – and material/product life cycle at each stage of the value chain.  This effectively allows risk hot spots to be identified at each point of a material and product’s development, use and disposal cycle.

Principles, not definitions.  Rather than rely on a single definition of engineered nanomaterial to guide risk-related research, we incorporated a set of principles into our conceptual framework to help identify materials of concern from an environment, health and safety impact perspective.  These build on the principles proposed by myself, Martin Philbert and David Warheit in a toxicology review published last year.  From the National Academies report:

Cross-posted from the Risk Science Blog

The World Economic Forum Global Risks Report is one of the most authoritative annual assessments of emerging issues surrounding risk currently produced. Now in its seventh edition, the 2012 report launched today draws on over 460 experts* from industry, government, academia and civil society to provide insight into 50 global risks across five categories, within a ten-year forward looking window.

As you would expect from such a major undertaking, the report has its limitations. There are some risk trends that maybe aren’t captured as well as they could be – chronic disease and pandemics are further down the list this year than I would have expected. And there are others that capture the headlining concerns of the moment – severe income disparity is the top-listed global risk in terms of likelihood. But taken as a whole, the trends highlighted capture key concerns and the analysis provides timely and relevant insight.

Risks are addressed in five broad categories, covering economic, environmental, geopolitical, societal and technological risks. And cutting across these, the report considers three top-level issues under the headings Seeds of Dystopia (action or inaction that leads to fragility in states); How Safe are our Safeguards? (unintended consequences of over, under and unresponsive regulation); and The Dark Side of Connectivity (connectivity-induced vulnerability). These provide a strong framework for approaching the identified risks systemically, and teasing apart complex interactions that could lead to adverse consequences.

But how does the report relate to public health more specifically?

The short answer is that many of the issues raised have a direct or indirect impact on public health nationally and globally. Many of the issues are complex and intertwined, and are deserving of much more attention than I’ve been able to give the report so far. I did however want to pull out some of the points that struck me on a first read-through:

Unintended consequences of nanotechnology. Following a trend seen in previous Global Risks reports, the unintended consequences of nanotechnology – while still flagged up – are toward the bottom of the risk spectrum. The potential toxicity of engineered nanomaterials is still mentioned as a concern. But most of the 50 risks addressed are rated as having a higher likelihood and/or impact.

Unintended consequences of new life science technologies. These are also relatively low on the list, but higher up the scale of concern that nanotechnologies. Specifically called out are the possibilities of genetic manipulation through synthetic biology leading to unintended consequences or biological weapons.

Unforeseen consequences of regulation. These are ranked relatively low in terms of likelihood and impact. But the broad significance of unintended consequences is highlighted in the report. These are also linked in with the potential impact and likelihood of global governance failure. Specifically, the report calls for

“A shift in mentality … so that policies, regulations or institutions can offer vital protection in a more agile and cohesive way.”

The report’s authors also ask how leaders can develop anticipatory and holistic approaches to system safeguards; how businesses and governments can prevent a breakdown of trust following the emergence of new risks; and how governments, business and civil society can work together to improve resilience against unforeseen risks.

Vulnerability to pandemics. Pandemic-associated risks are in the middle of the pack when it comes to potential impact, but not as high as might be expected on the likelihood scale. In 2007 and 2008 pandemics were listed in the top five global risks in terms of impact in the Global Risks Report, but have not appeared this high since 2009. With increasing talk about flu strains like H5N1, I wonder whether the relegation of pandemics from the top-tier risks is an oversight.

Antibiotic-resistant bacteria. These are flagged up right in the middle of the risk-pack as an emerging risk, and are one of the highest-ranked risks directly related to public health. The report provides little additional information beyond this though.

Food and water shortage crises. Thee are the highest-ranked risks in terms of impact below major systemic financial failure. And while they are both addressed as systemic risks, failure in each area has clear public health implications.

Rising rates of chronic disease. While overshadowed by higher profile risks, this remains an area of significant anticipated adverse impact and likelihood in the report.

Dystopic trends. The chapter addressing potential drivers of a dystopic future does not directly address public health issues. But trends that have an indirect impact on health thread through it. The impact of the current global financial crisis on jobs, working hours and benefits is highlighted, and it is noted that young people have been especially hard hit recently by a lack of career opportunities. The challenges of an aging population are also flagged. Both areas impact indirectly (and sometimes not so indirectly) on health and well-being. One of the questions for stakeholders posed here is “What measures should be taken today to deal with the changing socio-economic dynamics of an ageing population and a bulging young population?” One could equally well ask what measures should be taken to ensure the health of these two populations.

Regulatory risks. In the case addressing asking “How Safe are our Safeguards?” the report’s authors conclude that:

“far-reaching weaknesses in regulations [suggest] that we may be falling behind in our capacity to protect the systems that underpin growth and prosperity”

This report considers regulation extremely broadly, and spans everything from financial regulation to safety regulation. Yet it also stresses the need for integrated approaches to systemic challenges. The highlighted questions to stakeholders at the end of this section are particularly pertinent to health risk-related regulation and governance:

• How can leaders break the pattern of crisis followed by reactionary regulation and develop anticipatory and holistic approaches to system safeguards?
• How can appropriate regulations be developed so that firms will undertake effective safeguards?
• How can businesses and governments prevent a rapid breakdown of trust following the emergence of a new widespread risk?
• How can businesses, government and civil society work together to improve resilience against unforeseen risks?

Emerging technologies and emerging risks: In examining information on technologies and risks, the report concludes

“globally, the latest technologies are increasingly accessible to local industries, but indicators relating to confidence in the institutions responsible for developing safeguards, including those that manage the risks of emerging technologies, have not shown proportional increases.”

Special report on the 2011 Japan earthquake. The March 11 earthquake that hit Japan last year and the following tsunami resulted in widespread social, economic and health impacts. In a special report, the 2011 Global Risk Report takes a holistic look at factors, events and impacts. This is a case review that is well worth reading from a systemic risk perspective.

Risk centers of gravity. The report concludes with a fascinating analysis of risk “Centers of Gravity” within the five sectors it focuses on – these are described as the risks perceived to be of greatest systemic importance, or the most influential and consequential in relation to others, within each sector. The risk centers of gravity that emerged in each sector were:

• Economic: Chronic fiscal imbalances
• Environmental: Rising greenhouse gas emissions
• Geopolitical: Global governance failure
• Societal: Unsustainable population growth
• Technological: Critical systems failure

The bottom line? The report concludes that

Decision-makers need to improve understanding of incentives that will improve collaboration in response to global risks;

Trust, or lack of trust, is perceived to be a crucial factor in how risks may manifest themselves. In particular, this refers to confidence, or lack thereof, in leaders, in systems which ensure public safety and in the tools of communication that are revolutionizing how we share and digest information; and

Communication and information sharing on risks must be improved by introducing greater transparency about uncertainty and conveying it to the public in a meaningful way.

The Global Risks 2012 Seventh Edition is available at http://reports.weforum.org/global-risks-2012/

*I was marginally involved in the report as a member of the World Economic Forum Global Agenda Council on Emerging Technologies

Note to self: When being swept up in the inevitable innovation frenzies* that 2012 will bring, don’t forget to:

• Be aware of where change is needed, and where it is not;
• Focus on inventiveness that will foster new solutions to pressing challenges;
• Develop the foresight to explore and respond to the consequences of actions arising from new ideas;
• Have the humility to ask others for help in areas where expertise runs thin; and
• Not discount simple solutions to seemingly complex problems.

Oh, and go easy on the chocolate and booze.

Hope you all have a happy, fulfilled and productively innovative new year!

Andrew

__________________________________________________

*As well as working on and writing about technology innovation as usual, I’m expecting 2012 to be a big year for innovation in the “day job”, including exploring some new approaches to teaching and knowledge translation. 

]]> http://2020science.org/2011/12/31/innovation-resolutions-for-2012/feed/ 1 http://2020science.org/2011/11/07/exposure-to-silver-nanoparticles-may-be-more-common-than-we-thought/ http://2020science.org/2011/11/07/exposure-to-silver-nanoparticles-may-be-more-common-than-we-thought/#comments Tue, 08 Nov 2011 03:58:27 +0000 Andrew Maynard http://2020science.org/?p=4463

The past few years has seen an explosion of interest in silver nanoparticles.  Along with a plethora of products using the particles to imbue antimicrobial properties on everything from socks to toothpaste, nanometer scale silver particles have been under intense scrutiny from researchers and policy makers concerned that they present an emerging health and environmental risk.  But a paper published last month in the journal ACS Nano suggests that, contrary to popular understanding, we’ve been exposed to silver nanoparticles for as long as we have been using the metal.

I became aware of work in Jim Hutchison’s lab at the University of Oregon some months ago that showed nanoscale silver particles are readily released from larger particles and pieces of metal.  I remember the shiver (quite literally) as I saw data that seemed to challenge the current obsession with nanoscale silver as a possible new and unusual risk to people and the environment.  And at the time I wondered just how people would react when they discovered how ubiquitous exposure to nano-silver has probably been for the past few thousand years.

But rather than headlines screaming “feds invest millions in researching a centuries old non-problem” when the work was published last month, the response was rather muted.  Since publication, there has been a piece in Chemical & Engineering News, a long article written by Gwyneth Shaw in the New Haven Independent, a bizarrely headlined article claiming “Nanoparticles ‘no threat to health’” in TG Daily (as if the inverted commas justify the clearly unfounded statement)… and that’s about it.  And I’m not quite sure what to make of this deafening indifference.

The research itself shows that under certain conditions, metallic silver will release large numbers of silver nanoparticles.  Researchers attached small silver particles to electron microscope grids and exposed them to moisture.  Over a period of weeks, the particles became surrounded by large numbers of much smaller particles – the silver was shedding silver nanoparticles (see images to the right).  Nanoparticle release was also seen when resting large silver objects on the grids.  And the effect wasn’t confined to silver – copper also released nanoparticles in the presence of moisture.  To be sure that this wasn’t a product of how the research was conducted, the researchers checked to make sure that the particles weren’t being produced because of conditions on the grid or in the electron microscope – they weren’t.

The implications of this work are quite stunning.  It implies – although verification is needed – that any object made out of silver or coated in silver will slowly release silver nanoparticles into the environment.  Silver jugs and cutlery – used since ancient times – will have been releasing silver nanoparticles into food and drink.  Silver jewelry will have been releasing silver nanoparticles onto wearer’s skin.  Silver tongue studs will have been releasing silver nanoparticles into people’s gastrointestinal tract.  As soon as you start to think about it, there are all sorts of places where people and the environment could have been coexisting with silver nanoparticles for some time!

Assuming that this is the case, what are the implications for current research on the health and environmental impacts of silver nanoparticles, of which there is rather a lot? (A search of the ICON nanoEHS Virtual Journal returns over 300 papers mentioning silver published since 2005).  Is nano silver a sufficiently unusual and potentially dangerous substance to justify millions of dollars being spent on researching its risks?  Does the new wave of nano silver products represent an emergent risk, or simply a repackaged old risk?  And if exposure to nano silver has been occurring for millennia, where is the evidence for harm associated with this exposure?

Of course, a critical factor here is how much stuff are people and the environment exposed to – how much nano silver will you be exposed to eating with premium silverware for instance, and how does this compare to wearing the latest offering of nano-silver socks?  It may be that the new interest in using nano silver in commercial products is leading to a significant jump in exposure.

Be that as it may, the most significant implication of the research to me is that it undermines the assumption that products carrying the “nanotechnology” label automatically present new and unusual risks.  Silver nanoparticles have been touted as a product of nanotechnology, and indeed they do fit the bill – intentionally engineered at the nanoscale to be used in unique ways.  And this association with nanotechnology has led to research and policy organizations to invest an awful lot of time and effort in them – from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development to the US Environmental protection Agency.  Yet from a health and environmental impact perspective, it is looking increasingly likely that many engineered silver nanoparticles are indistinguishable from those nanoparticles shed by every piece of silver and silver plated stuff in common use.

So where does this leave us?  Should we abandon research into the health and environmental impacts of silver nanoparticles?  Probably not, because we still need to understand the risks associated with what we intentionally use.  But we might want to ease back on the passion that seems to be driving interest in nano silver risks, almost to the exclusion of other materials.

And we might want to rethink framing nano silver as a new threat from an emerging technology – unless someone can convincingly demonstrate that the nanoparticles from my silver spoon are not as worrisome as those from my nano-engineered socks.

]]> http://2020science.org/2011/11/07/exposure-to-silver-nanoparticles-may-be-more-common-than-we-thought/feed/ 6 http://2020science.org/2011/11/06/techno-hype-or-techno-hope-two-panel-discussions-on-technology-innovation/ http://2020science.org/2011/11/06/techno-hype-or-techno-hope-two-panel-discussions-on-technology-innovation/#comments Sun, 06 Nov 2011 15:46:59 +0000 Andrew Maynard http://2020science.org/?p=4452

I’ve been up to my eyeballs this past few weeks in stuff, and haven’t had as much time as usual to post here.  So this weekend I thought I would take the easy route and post a couple of videos from the recent Symposium on Risk, Uncertainty and Sustainable Innovation.

These were back to back panel discussions that were designed to set the scene for the symposium by helping to distinguish technology reality from technology hype.  They make interesting viewing, as well as providing what I thought was a rather interesting take on significant areas of technology innovation – especially the second panel.

The full set of symposium videos can be viewed here.

Enjoy

Techno-hype or techno-reality?

Mark Banaszak Holl, UM Associate VP, Office of Vice President for Research.  Thomas Zurbuchen, Associate Dean for Entrepreneurial Programs, UM College of Engineering.  Paula Olsiewski, Program Director, Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.  James Bagian, Director of the UM Center for Healthcare Engineering and Patient Safety.

How are new technologies changing the world?

Gil Omenn, Director of the UM Center for Computational Medicine & Bioinformatics.  James Baker, Director of the Michigan Nanotechnology Institute for Medicine.  Ann Marie Sastry, CEO and Co-Founder of Satki3.  Jörg Lahann, Associate Professor of Chemical Engineering, University of Michigan.

The European Commission had just adopted a “cross-cutting designation of nanomaterials to be used for all regulatory purposes” (link). The definition builds on a draft definition released last year, but includes a number of substantial changes to this.

Here’s the full text of the definition:

1. Member States, the Union agencies and economic operators are invited to use the following definition of the term “nanomaterial” in the adoption and implementation of legislation and policy and research programmes concerning products of nanotechnologies.

2. “Nanomaterial” means a natural, incidental or manufactured material containing particles, in an unbound state or as an aggregate or as an agglomerate and where, for 50 % or more of the particles in the number size distribution, one or more external dimensions is in the size range 1 nm – 100 nm.

In specific cases and where warranted by concerns for the environment, health, safety or competitiveness the number size distribution threshold of 50 % may be replaced by a threshold between 1 and 50 %.

3. By derogation from point 2, fullerenes, graphene flakes and single wall carbon nanotubes with one or more external dimensions below 1 nm should be considered as nanomaterials.

4. For the purposes of point (2), “particle”, “agglomerate” and “aggregate” are defined as follows:

(a) “Particle” means a minute piece of matter with defined physical boundaries;

(b) “Agglomerate” means a collection of weakly bound particles or aggregates where the resulting external surface area is similar to the sum of the surface areas of the individual components;

(c) “Aggregate” means a particle comprising of strongly bound or fused particles.

5. Where technically feasible and requested in specific legislation, compliance with the definition in point (2) may be determined on the basis of the specific surface area by volume. A material should be considered as falling under the definition in point (2) where the specific surface area by volume of the material is greater than 60 m2 / cm3. However, a material which, based on its number size distribution, is a nanomaterial should be considered as complying with the definition in point (2) even if the material has a specific surface area lower than 60 m2/cm3.

6. By December 2014, the definition set out in points (1) to (5) will be reviewed in the light of experience and of scientific and technological developments. The review should particularly focus on whether the number size distribution threshold of 50 % should be increased or decreased.

7. This Recommendation is addressed to the Member States, Union agencies and economic operators.

Particular points of interest here include:

1.  The inclusion of incidental and natural materials in the definition.  The inference is that any product containing or associated with nanomaterials from any of these sources will potentially be regulated under this definition.  Strict enforcement of this definition would encompass many polymeric materials and most heterogeneous materials currently in use.  And the lack of distinction between “hard” and “soft” nanoparticles means that the definition applies to any substance containing small micelles or liposomes – someone needs to check the micelle size distribution in homogenized milk.

2.  The focus on unbound nanoparticles and their agglomerates and aggregates.  This makes sense in terms of targeting materials with the greatest exposure potential.  But it may be hard to apply to complex nanostructured materials which nevertheless present unusual health and environmental risks – such as materials with biologically active structures that are not based on unbound nanoparticles (patterned surfaces, porous materials and nano-engineered micrometer-sized structures come to mind).

3.  The threshold of 50% of a material’s number distribution comprising of particles with one or more external dimension between 1 nm – 100 nm.  This is a laudable attempt to handle materials comprised of particles of different sizes.  But it is unclear where the scientific basis for the 50% threshold lies, how this applies to aggregates and agglomerates, and how diameter is defined (there is no absolute measure of particle diameter – it depends on how it is defined and measured).

4.  The “grandfathering” in of materials such as fullerenes, graphene flakes and carbon nanotubes with one or more dimensions below 1 nm.  This makes little sense – carbon 60 fullerenes are around 1 nm in diameter, and single walled carbon nanotubes typically have a lower diameter just above 1 nm.  Unless this is a typo, and should have read “100 nm”.  Surely not.

This seems very much like a definition of convenience – and one that I worry will detract from developing evidence-based regulation (see my previous comments on this).  Of course, the critical question is, how will the definition be used.  According to the EC,

Nanomaterials are not intrinsically hazardous per se but there may be a need to take into account specific considerations in their risk assessment. Therefore one purpose of the definition is to provide clear and unambiguous criteria to identify materials for which such considerations apply. It is only the results of the risk assessment that will determine whether the nanomaterial is hazardous and whether or not further action is justified.

In other words, there is no clear evidence of risk here, but provisions are being made to regulate a notional class of materials, just in case evidence should indeed emerge.

The desire to identify materials that require further action makes sense.  But I do worry that this definition is a significant move toward requiring industry action and providing consumer information in a way that creates concern and raises economic barriers, without protecting health (and possibly taking the focus off materials that could present unusual risks) – in the “do no harm” and “do good” stakes, it seems somewhat lacking.

This coming Thursday (Oct 20 2011), the US National Nanotechnology Initiative is releasing the latest version of the Initiative’s federal nanotechnology environmental, health and safety research strategy.  The strategy will be available for download from 10:00 AM Eastern time, with a webinar on the release being held between 12:00 PM – 12:45 PM Eastern (registration required).  Further details can be found here.

A draft of the research strategy was published in December 2010 for public comment – with the aim of using these comments where appropriate to strengthen the final strategy.

In anticipation of the final version coming out on Thursday, I’ve been revisiting the public comments received.  They are still accessible on the NNI Strategy Portal, although you will need to register to read them (my comments are available separately here).  I’m particularly interested in how the NNI has addressed them in the final strategy.

While going through this exercise, I thought it worth listing the key recommendations made within these public comments.  These are extracted from comments posted on the NNI Strategy Portal, and i many cases just represent the key recommendations made in the comments:

Richard Harenburg

The 2011 NNI EHS Research Strategy needs to provide more focus on building a collaborative informatics infrastructure. Improved speed in disseminating risk and safety information is particularly critical. Collaboration with foreign nanotechnology research organizations should be developed in this area. Priority should also be given to the signature nanotechnology initiatives such as third generation solar energy. Collaborative informatics infrastructure examples can come from small businesses that use agility and innovation to succeed and grow. Examples can also come from some foreign countries that have demonstrated agility, innovation and growth.

Jeffrey Ellis

The strategy I recommend is for each product containing a nanomaterial and its uses to be first screened by the manufacturers for potential safety problems once it leaves the production facility. The manufacturers thereof should as a matter of course provide such data. If use requires special safety equipment (gloves, masks, etc) such instruction must be provided with the product.

Bill Kojola

An integrated and linked research effort to assess, via epidemiological studies, the impact of exposure to engineered nanomaterials on human health and any necessary resultant risk assessment/management responses seems to be missing from the strategy.

Andrew Maynard

…what would it take to craft a federal strategy that enabled agencies to work together more effectively in ensuring the safe use of nanomaterials?  I’m not sure that this is entirely possible – an internal strategy will always be constrained by the system in ways that an externally-crafted strategy isn’t.  But I do think that there are three areas in particular that could be built on here:

1. Principles. The idea of establishing principles to which agencies sign up to is a powerful one, and could be extended further.  For instance, they could include a commitment to working closely and cooperatively with other agencies, to working toward a common set of aims, and to critically reviewing progress towards these aims on a regular basis.
2. Accountability. The implementation and coordination framework set out in chapter 8 of the draft strategy contains a number of items that, with a bit of work, some group within the federal government could be held accountable to.  Formally, the NNCO would seem to be the most appropriate organization to be held responsible for progress here.  With accountability for actions that support the implementation and coordination of the strategy, a basis could be built for an actionable strategy, rather than wishful thinking.
3. Innovation. So often in documents like this, there is a sense of defeatism – “this is the system, and there’s nothing we can do to change it”.  Yet there are always innovative ways to circumvent institutional barriers in order to achieve specific ends.  I would strongly encourage the NEHI to start from the question “where to we want to go, and how are we going to get there”, rather than “what are we allowed to do”, and from this starting point explore innovative ways of making substantive and measurable progress towards the stated mission of the strategy.  Just one possibility here is to use the model of the Signature Initiatives being developed elsewhere within the NNI – which overcome institutional barriers to encourage agencies to focus on a common challenge.  Something similar to a Signature Initiative focused on predictive modeling, or personal exposure measurement, or nanomaterial characterization, could enable highly coordinated and integrated cross-agency programs that accelerate progress toward specific goals.  But this is just one possibility – there are surely many more ways of getting round the system!

John DiLoreto, The Nanotechnology Coalition

A core mission of the NNI is to foster “technological advancements that benefit society” (Draft NNI 2011 Environmental, Health, and Safety Strategy, page 1). The NNI strategy provides valuable help in identifying key research areas and, in some cases, providing the necessary funding to conduct the research itself. The Coalition believes that to fulfill its mission in this regard, the NNI could and should direct its considerable influence and resources to educating regulatory and other officials in positions of influence about nanotechnology so they can better fulfill their responsibilities to protect the safety of consumers. The EHS research strategy should also examine ways that science-based safety information can be shared with regulatory officials and others in leadership positions and provide scientific resources to assist these officials in understanding what a ‘nanomaterial’ is and help create a better understanding of properties that may impact safety.

David Berube

Section 6, p. 56, line 23/25/26/30 – 23 conflates translation with risk communication (they are different). 25 “approaches” is unclear and should reference levels of acceptable caution. 26 high uncertainty may demand whole new algorithms – your assumption whether risk communication and risk management can be integrated is incorrect. 30 is a good point to discuss the conflation of translation which occurs between parties within similar ranges of understanding and public perception (NGOs) as well as perception of public perception (legislators). Each of these subset publics have different needs and interests and standardization of terminology is hardly sufficient to the task at hand.

p. 57 line 4 – see above and consider we might need to develop algorithms appropriate to different levels of certainty. The assumption the answer to uncertainty is more certainty is not necessarily valid for all publics. The simplified version in the document seems more attuned to strategic communication involving response strategies for different risks and certainty values involving variables like plausibility, phenomenon specificity, exigence, salience, etc.

p. 63 lines 34/37 34 (see above). 37 one model does not fit all. 38 link to trust is very complex and complicated by new/digital media sources as well as new credibility (social media) and reliability.

p. 58 lines 1/5/11/27 (see above) and this demands information sharing and transparency as well as answering how data is defined, who decides what is relevant data, how it is generated, how data is compiled and concatenated. how data is vetted and debunked, and how data is revised. 5 two ways is overly simplistic, try interactional. 11 this is a model issue and we do not have a model for high uncertainty. 27 assumes risk communication is a function of data, esp. scientific data and for many publics that is not true.

p. 76 – Explanation SP objective 4.2 re: needs of the stakeholders – it might be prudent to ask them what their needs are.

Samantha Dozier, PETA

A complete, step-wise method for rigorous characterization is imperative so that measurement is not questioned and studies are not repeated. A clear requirement for nanomaterial characterization will help eliminate redundancy and imprecise data-gathering and will aid in reducing animal use for the field.

For human health effects assessment, the NNI should promote the development of a tiered, weight-of-evidence approach that is based on the most relevant methods available and encourages the NNI to support the incorporation of appropriate in vitro human-relevant cell and tissue assays for all endpoints, instead of relying on inadequately modified, non-validated animal assays. This tiered approach should start with an initial characterization of the nanomaterial, followed by in vitro basal cell and portal-of-entry toxicity assessments according to human exposure potential and a full characterization of the toxicokinetic potential.

Martin Philbert

…it is imperative that the NNI focuses on developing and implementing a plan of action that supports coordinated and responsive progress towards addressing nanomaterial safety, despite mounting barriers to achieving this. Such an approach will need to focus less on the details of what research needs to be done – there is already a plethora of information available on this – and more on cross-agency mechanisms that will support relevant and timely research.

Chapter 8 of the draft strategy begins to address this need. I would strongly encourage the NEHI working group to build on this promising start, and develop a cross-agency plan of action that enables the necessary research to progress, despite political, social, institutional and other pressures that will inevitably obstruct it.

Maria Victoria Peeler

After much discussion and reviewing comments on this web site, as well as reviewing NNI’s proposals again, I believe it’s in order to point out that while the document makes it clear that the funding is comparatively large, but limited, the critical prioritization of current US needs to achieve sustainable use of nanotechnology is missing.

The listing of the proposed projects by each requestor does not answer the question as to which projects are 1) absolutilely necessary to survive, 2) of major importance for competitive purposes (list of competitive priorities should also be defined. For example, is economic viability a higher priority than population viability..of key species or top of the chain species?) and 3) of major importance to maintain stable diversity of all Earth meeds, to avoid global to regional catastrophy. Beyond that, each project ought to require documentation that ensures the end result will not be deletirious. We do not need to foul our own nest anymore than we have already.

Robert Wiacek

Responsible and cautious science-base risk analysis and risk management by the EHS community needs to be a priority in order to curtail any unsubstantiated fears of nanomaterials that might arise by the public and ultimately restrict the development of nano-based technology.

In the listing of the goals, Line 8 (Protects public health and the environment) should remain first, Line 10 (Fosters technological advancements that benefits society) should be second, and the last goal listed should be Line 9 (Employs science-based risk analysis and risk management). This would be more consistent with the overall fourfold goals of the NNI (Introduction, Page 1).

Ronald Turco

Overall, the effort is comprehensive looking at the history of the program. However, I keyed in on page 43 line 10, “Releases of engineered nanomaterials ….” as I feel the forward thinking part of the effort ignores “nanocomposites” (the word occurs one time in the document.)… I think the report needs to move forward a bit and start to think more seriously and address the real materials. Use of the term nanomaterials is too vague as it leaves it open as to what is actually being studied (pure forms or product materials). I think raw nanosilver gets a little too much attention – again in what form will it actually be entering the environment (page 54)? We need to be thinking about how the real materials are or will be transformed. The photochemistry work of Jafvert (Hou and Jafvert, 2009; Hou et al., 2010), the fungal work of Filley (Schreiner et al., 2009) and others are a great example of how readily these materials can actually be acted upon in the environment.

Karoly Meszlenyi, The Methodist Hospital Research Institute (TMHRI)

Chapter 2 Instrumentation, Metrology, and Analytical Methods
The monitoring of nano-materials in the environment is critically important for the protection of the safety of laboratory workers at all levels. Because of this, TMHRI suggests that additional research efforts be directed into and reliable methods for the rapid detection, identification and measurement of nano-materials in laboratory and other environments.

Chapter 3 – Nanomaterials and Human Health
Research should also be directed toward an evaluation of the relative toxicity of each type of nano-material, as well as the methods and/or routes by which each nano-material is most likely to be taken into the body. lt is particularly important to proceed with research into the most effective equipment and methods for protection of workers from exposure to nano-materials. This research should include proper techniques for the handling and disposal of equipment once it has been used.

Chapter 6 – Risk Management Methods
In addition to the activities we suggest with regard to the development of the proper equipment and methods for the handling of nano-materials, research should be conducted into the development of equipment and methods for the prevention of nano-materials spills, as well as the most effective equipment and methods for the safe, rapid and effective cleanup and remediation of any such incidents.

Gaythia Weis

I recommend that some input from industrial techniques for matrix management and virtual team building would be highly useful approaches to dealing with the inter-agency and multiple stakeholder issues… I think this document:
http://www.particlea…f/1743-8977-7-40.pdf is a great outline of how to establish protocols for working with new and unfamiliar materials, and implementation of the precautionary principle. I especially like the design tree flow chart and the figures. I believe that something very specific based on the style of this report should appear early on in the US National Nanotechnology Initiative Environmental, Health and Safety strategy document. I would place this directly after the material now in Chapter 8. Because if you want to convey concepts about health and safety you have to be clear about it. And this Particle Fiber and Technology document knows how to do that. I don’t think you can have a Environmental health and safety strategy unless you really get down to the nuts and bolts of health and safety.

The American Chemistry Council’s Nanotechnology Panel

The Panel supports the approach of integrating the risk assessment paradigm within product life cycle stages and the NNI’s overall adaptive management approach to EHS research. While we support the vision and mission in principle, we believe that the vision statement does not adequately acknowledge the potential of nanotechnology to enhance environmental quality. The panel also hopes that, contrary to the text box following the mission statement, the definition of “engineered nanomaterial” used in the EHS strategy would provide some degree of guidance (and consistency) to federal agencies developing their own definitions.

The Panel believes that risk communication deserves increased emphasis. We do not believe that it is sufficient to simply “integrate and standardize risk communication within the risk management framework” (p. 63). As nanotechnology EHS research increases, the question of what study results mean in terms of potential health or environmental risk must be communicated effectively. The draft frequently mentions increasing the availability of EHS information, but the public needs more than the numbers from a risk assessment to interpret studies and understand what risk management measures, if needed, are in place. We recommend that risk communication be more of a priority with a focus on addressing scientific uncertainty, public perceptions, and ELSI.

The draft strategy does not prioritize the need for consistent terminology in EHS research and practice. Standardized terminology would reduce confusion (e.g., routine use of primary particle size to describe materials composed mostly or entirely of aggregates and agglomerates). The lack of common terminology can lead to erroneous conclusions about the sources of potential EHS impacts and how to perform appropriate surveillance and exposure monitoring. As noted in the draft, lack of common terminology can also undermine risk communication.

The Panel notes that the term “comparative risk assessment” is used frequently, but it is not defined. Is it a comparison of different nanomaterial risk assessments or of how different properties influence risk assessment? The Panel requests clarity on the meaning of this term and notes that assessments that compare nano and non-nano forms of materials may be useful for assessing whether nano forms of materials possess increased risk relative to non-nano forms.

Although education is a major component of the overall NNI strategic plan, there are no linkages to education in the draft EHS strategy.

Günter Oberdörster

Page 31, lines 7-13: Although the need for developing appropriate, reliable, etc. in vitro and in vivo assays need to be identified, this need could include and emphasize the validation of any in vitro system through in vivo studies. In addition, the choice of realistic, relevant doses/concentrations should be informed by data from exposure assessment which should be stressed.

Page 31, line 35: The nose is listed here as a non-traditional route of entry, it certainly is not, nasal and oral inhalation are both very traditional portals of entry.

Page 32, lines 3 and 4: When designing dose response and time course studies, the need for inclusion of realistic doses should be mentioned.

Page 32, lines 9 and 10: Likewise, with respect to alternative in vitro testing methods for rapid screening, it should be emphasized again that validation is necessary since mechanisms are dose-dependent and mechanisms associated with extraordinarily high doses in vitro are likely not to operate in vivo. So the predictability of in vitro assays for in vivo responses clearly needs to be confirmed.

Page 35, lines 3-14, Overview: In this well-written overview section, I would like to see more emphasis on a validation of in vitro assays by in vivo studies; just pointing to the correlation (correlation which way?) of in vitro results with in vivo outcomes is not strong enough in my view. It should be pointed out in this section that the term in vivo also requires some scrutiny with respect to methodologies: for example, inhalation as the preferred method is clearly the gold standard as far as the respiratory tract as portal of entry is concerned, yet bolus type delivery (instillation, aspiration) are continuously used, calling for a need to compare different in vivo types of exposure to assess their usefulness. (Differences in dose-rate as important determinant of acute effects).

Page 37, lines 15-29, Overview: This section again is a good overview, however, it could be more specific with respect to what are the goals of biokinetics, which are described here as developing models that predict ENM biological exposure and fate. Important in addition is to identify from such biokinetic studies potential target tissues/organs. Specifically, sensitive tissues could be mentioned, such as bone marrow, CNS, cardio-vascular system, placenta, the latter pointing to the potential of reproductive effects.

Page 38, lines 38-45: This overview of ENM uptake and portal of entry tissues addresses also the issue of inhalation vs. intratracheal instillation as well as use of high exposure doses. However, it appears that for the instillation methodology (aspiration should be mentioned also, both together to be described as acute bolus type deliveries) by-passing of the upper respiratory tract is identified as the only limiting factor with respect to risk assessment. However, a major problem not mentioned here is the difference in dose rate between inhalation and bolus type delivery, in addition to differences in distributions of deposited doses in the lower respiratory tract.

Page 39, lines 34-46, Overview: The need for fundamental understanding of the mode of action is addressed here, and it would be helpful to remind the reader that mechanisms also are dose-dependent, and that therefore the identification of molecular mechanisms mediating biological responses also require to make certain that they are operating in vivo, particularly in case they are derived from high-dose in vitro studies.

Page 56, lines 9 and 10: A minor point, I suggest to reverse these two lines, to place Hazard Identification first, followed by Risk Characterization, which is dose-response assessment.

Page 68: This last section on Informatics and Modeling identifies some problems with regard to setting up a better collaborative infrastructure considering, among others, the policies and practices of different agencies (line 5), funding mechanisms and funding evaluation schemes, etc.; but there doesn’t seem to be a solution offered to solve these problems although there is some attempt in the last section, The Path Forward (see below).

The Informatics section is very useful, in particular also since it emphasizes the importance of validating predictive capabilities of in vitro and in vivo assays (lines 17 and 25) and to incorporate necessary additional information. It would be helpful to add a short paragraph about the time line of informatics, obviously these are long-term goals, can you provide any milestones for the goals?

Pages 70/71, Path Forward: With respect to targeting and accelerating HS research, six bullet-points are listed, however, an overarching issue that could be introduced here (it comes several pages later) is that there ought to be a coordinating oversight body, otherwise, it might be just a continuation of how it is now.

Page 71, line 22: Dosemetrics such as surface area and solubility are listed as something new which certainly is not the case. Otherwise, this listing of prioritized research is well developed and makes good sense.

“Page 77, lines 2-7, Implementation and Coordination: The essentiality of continuous coordination among agencies through the NEHI working group and addition of an NNCO coordinator is expressed. This sounds pretty good, how well will it work though? This document lists many projects for each of the research needs, but there was not much evidence of inter-project collaboration/discussions.

Page 78, first bullet-point, lists the new NNCO coordinator but it is not clear what, if any, directive power this coordinator will have? Just assisting agencies may not be enough.

Page 78, (Lines 4-9) In addition, the NEHI working group will continue to facilitate coordination and increased collaboration among the agencies, so it is not clear really how these two coordinating groups work together and how much of a directed coordinated agenda for accelerated EHS research is now in place or how is that different from the past? The NEHI working group is continuing its coordinating efforts nationally and internationally, so what is the role of the new NNCO coordinator?

Page 79 discusses very nicely the dissemination of knowledge and comes up with a Conclusion Paragraph. However, in both of these the NNCO coordinator is not mentioned, so how important really is this coordinator? Role of the NNCO needs to be better clarified.

Page 91, Appendix C. Definitions — Nanoparticle or nanoscale particle: Text reads: “ … a nano-object with all three external dimensions …” — should be “…at least one external dimension….”.

Skip Rung

1. The document is not by any means a roadmap for “support(ing) responsible development of nanotechnology” (NNI goal #4), because it is almost completely focused on risk rather than on proactive activities (though these are briefly mentioned in a few places), and because there are no cost or timeline estimates for achievement of objectives that would enable such development.

2. Though the term “comparative risk” is used in places, there is almost no sense of comparison of the risks of using new nanomaterials with (a) conventional materials or (b) incumbent nanomaterials that were certified prior to recent precautionary blocking and slowdowns. This concern is somewhat personal : an ONAMI gap fund portfolio company, Dune Sciences, which has a better (performance and safety) nanosilver technology, has been severely harmed precisely because of an inability to make such beneficial tradeoffs. Unlike the world of “substances” under TSCA, at least some categories of new nanomaterials developed in the US are at this time practically blocked from commercialization here. This is causing loss of opportunity to Asia.

Two suggestions: a) Set appropriate comparative risk context in the introduction and all relevant sections. b) Fund comparative hazard/exposure/risk studies in a few key/prioritized cases

3. It is unlikely that more than a tiny fraction of the US public knows that the level of scrutiny (both because of genuine scientific interest and because of technophobic NGO influence) being applied to nanomaterials is unprecedented, and has not been applied to molecular (other than certain categories) or micron-scale materials. To cite two of many possible examples, molecular species in plastics used in many products (household items, electronics, automobiles) are known to outgas, and micron-scale particles (in the range most favored for deep lung inhalation) are emitted from paper products and office copiers.

4. It seems imperative to me, unless the NNI wants to be an enabler of even more loss of manufacturing and high-value product development activity in the US, to incorporate – or at least prominently mention in its introduction – a broader comparative sense of risks vs. benefits in the world of materials/substances, and to include/highlight more activity on proactive development of nanomaterials and nanomanufacturing processes, including not just “safe by design” efforts but also safe and low-impact fabrication and purification methods.

5. The occupational exposure research methods should use NIOSH-approved workplace and PPE protocols as the baseline, otherwise needless concern may be raised. If resources permit, comparing this baseline with less precautionary practices would provide useful sensitivity information.

6. There might be greater mention of biological assay methods that combine the best features of in vitro (e.g. small material requirement, high throughput) and in vivo (e.g. vertebrate development impact) studies. One is the use of embryonic zebrafish.

Thomas Peters

Major comments

1) I disagree with the order of priorities in the Human Exposure Assessment area. The authors seem confused among what can be done and what needs to be done. Ultimately, I think that most would agree that the number one need is to “characterize exposures among [people, although the word ‘workers’ was used in 2008]”. The new need #1 is to “understand processes and factors that determine exposures to NM”. I disagree with this reprioritization and suspects that this change reflects the desire to have something more easily tactically achieved in the number one slot. I do not agree that the old needs map to the new needs as indicated by the arrows in Figure 3-1.

I also suspect that the authors have overstated the progress that has been made as stated on page 22, line 10. We still know very little about workplace exposures and there should still be a focus in this area.”\

2) There seems to be an opportunity for more clear linkage among the different chapters. Additionally, the different chapters do not seem parallel as they are presented. Consequently, I sense that there is not an overarching vision within this document that is not explicitly stated.
I believe that this problem would not be overly difficult resolve. I suspect that the figure on the cover of the document was an attempt to provide linkage. From this figure, I see that areas of “Predictive Modeling & Informatics” and “Nanomaterial Measurement Infrastructure” form an important overarching core that is used by “Human Health”, “Human Exposure”, and “Environment”. Ultimately, all of these areas feed “Risk Assessment and Management”. This figure and discussion should be a central piece of the Introduction.

3) The Introduction needs to clearly state what the current strategy is apart from the old strategy. The introduction weaves back and forth between old and new. I am confused as a new reader of this document. The result of this confusion is that the entire strategy appears non-cohesive and weak.

4) The development of partnerships with industry and other stakeholders are absent in this document, or perhaps they are simply too deeply embedded for me to find.

Specific comments

…

3) Miscellaneous issues:

• Figure 1-3 appears on page 4 but is not referenced in the text until page 7. It is also not really discussed so it feels like an afterthought rather than a central piece of the document.

• P9, line 25. I find it strange that the words ‘new and improved’ are inherent to the definition of ‘instruments’. I suggest that they be dropped.

• P9, line 21. I find that “developed by national metrology institutes” is too exclusive for the definition of “standards” in a document of this scope.

Fred Klaessig

The issues surrounding safety and societal acceptance are broader than the specifics of any one technology, and for that reason, I am a proponent of Objective # 4 (EHS and ELSI) becoming the NNI’s Objective #1. Some separation should be encouraged so that the enthusiasm, the jargon and the promotional fervor do not cast a strong shadow over thoughtful EHS evaluations. The definition of nanomaterial in this document, the EHS Research Strategy, is more appropriate to the first three NNI objectives and less so to the fourth, and consideration should be given to using the ISO definition in its stead along with a qualifying statement.

1). When breathing, we inhale particles and not ‘nano-enabled’ products;
2). When these particles pass into our lungs, the smaller particles reach the deep alveoli based upon hydrodynamic flow and particle size, not ‘unique’ properties;
3). The particles that reach the deep long may lodge there, while the larger particles are coughed up and then go down the GI tract;
4). The body’s initial response to lodged particles is based on the innate immune system’s general reaction to any foreign body plus some immediate chemistry such as wetting, acid-base reactions, dissolution; and
5). The body’s long-term response is closely tied to persistent inflammation, while the localized chemical response is closely tied to biopersistence and particle migration.

The above points favor the ISO definition of nanomaterial with an advisory that for EHS purposes, we emphasize particulate matter. A suggestion would be for the definition on page 1:

nanomaterial: material with any external dimension in the nanoscale or having internal structure or surface structure in the nanoscale

Note: For EHS purposes the primary interest is in respirable and ingestible particulates, where the information developed can be extended to larger nanomaterials.

Vincent Caprio, Nano Business Alliance (NbA)

First, NbA urges NNI to prioritize the development of consistent terminology to insure regulatory initiatives are properly focused. Standardized terminology reduces the potential for unwarranted and commercially stifling regulatory measures that have the potential to undermine the successful commercialization of nano enterprises.

Second, the Alliance urges NNI to enhance its commitment to educate the public, including legislators and regulators, about nanotechnology to foster a thorough understanding of the benefits nanotechnology offers.

David Wagger (Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries inc.)

Figure 1-4 [8/9–13] should show recycling pathways from Product End of Life to each preceding step (e.g., refurbished used electronics, reused electronics components, and shredded hard-drives) and identify potential recycling worker exposure. Also, the text regards recycling unevenly, including it in Ch. 2 and Ch. 3 [10/35–36; 15/11–13; 18/18–20; 20/19–26] but tending to omit it in Ch. 5 and Ch. 6 [43/22–23; 48/22–25; 62/18–20; 64/32–34]. Recycling should be identified where appropriate.

…

Finally, ISRI agrees that “stakeholders have an essential role to play” [80/3–4] and would be interested in participating in the Strategy’s efforts to meet NNI Strategic Plan Objectives 4.1.2, 4.2, and 4.3.2.

Paul Sarahan

With respect to Chapters 4 and 5, the report should emphasize the need for proposed research projects to focus on and be designed to reflect real-life material usage, exposure doses, and exposure pathways, so that the results can be easily translated to real world operations in a meaningful way.

Regarding Chapter 6, I would encourage a review of existing statutory and regulatory authority that could spur nano operations to perform risk assessments as a regular course of business. See, e.g., http://www.fulbright…technologySafety.pdf , http://www.fulbright…technologySafety.pdf

Michael Ellenbecker

Page Line Comment

14 30 TEM and SEM are very valuable tools for analyzing properties of ENMs. Standardized protocols for sample collection, preparation and analysis need to be funded and developed.

15 18 Standardized methods for evaluating workplace exposures to ENMs must receive a very high priority.

20 17 We believe that the international harmonization of exposure assessment methodologies is of utmost importance. We recommend that US NNI agencies work closely with colleagues in the EU and elsewhere to ensure this occurs. It is important to recognize that different exposure assessment methodologies are appropriate for different exposure scenarios, i.e., exposure methods used for epidemiology studies will require different measurement equipment and strategies than exposure methods used for comparison to permissible exposure limits.

20 30 Again, it is very important that consistent quantitative assessment methods be used in all countries, so data can be compared and correlated.

24 4 International harmonization and consistency is extremely important here, since it is likely that in the near future the only way to establish large enough cohorts of workers exposed to a particular ENM is by combining populations from different countries.

30 6 The lack of any funded health surveillance projects is of great concern. Such projects should be designed and funded with international partners.

30 10 The safe levels of exposures should consider the effects of available controls applied to such exposure when the evaluation was taken, this is usually important for workplace exposure. Thus, the information about the control strategies used and associated with the studied exposure has to be reported.

30 30-38 The assessments for populations who are exposed to consumer products containing engineered nanomaterials will require a different evaluation/assessment strategy compared to workplace exposures.

31 3 The assessment models require further evaluation to be adopted for different scenarios. This will need large funding to develop the tools and appropriate instrumentation.

31 5 Harmonization of assessment models and data collection with international partners is important for further development on health surveillance.

60 44 We strongly agree with the statement that studies on exposure control methods are lacking. Equal emphasis must be given to controlling exposures as to evaluating them; the current NNI strategy seems to favor evaluation over control, which is a mistake in our view.

70 15 We strongly believe that another key principle should be “Develop effective strategies to effectively control exposures to ENMs.”

72 43 We agree with the importance of international coordination. All ENM research should be performed with an eye towards international coordination.

Lockheed Martin

The recommendation to create an exposure registry deserves further exploration.

For example:

1. Who would establish the program to gather physician case reports and other reports of adverse events?
2. What constitutes exposure and what factors determine who is entered into the registry? Exposure needs to be categorized. For example, the type of nanomaterials used in the workplace, exposure estimates, and control measures should be documented. Otherwise, data might not be collected in a format or using a method which could be used for future studies.
3. There is no specific health impact identified, so would medical surveillance constitute a research study? Do the criteria and requirements for human subject research need to be applied?
4. What type of medical surveillance should be performed? There is a wide variety of nanomaterials, and it is not likely that one type of medical surveillance will suffice for all nanomaterials. With the exception of draft recommendations from NIOSH for carbon nanotubes/nanofibers, very little has been published on this issue. Thus, NNI should consider providing recommendations for appropriate medical surveillance.

References to the “transformation products” of nanomaterials and the potential for human exposure to these transformed materials appear in the Human Health and other sections of the NNI document. The draft creates the impression that generation of “transformation products” from nanomaterials is a foregone conclusion and that there is potential for a biological response. Although basic environmental chemistry may allow one to predict how a chemical will be transformed when released into the environment, this is not necessarily the case with nanomaterials/nanoparticles due to their unique properties. NNI should support well-designed studies regarding if/how specific nanomaterials are transformed in the environment. This would provide useful data while saving resources otherwise expended seeking biological responses to an unknown or nonexistent transformation product.

The use of toxicological data to create computational models for predicting toxicity in silico along with references to high throughput testing are mentioned in the Human Health section. These technologies hold great promise for the future. However, a substantial amount of work remains to be done in developing reliable, reproducible methods for conducting in vitro and in vivo toxicity testing. The emphasis for the near term should be placed on refining the latter methods and collecting data essential for developing and understanding the toxicity associated with different nanomaterials.

Christopher Bosso, Ronald Sandler, and Jacqueline Isaacs

Environmental Justice. The EHS strategy makes only one reference to environmental justice (p. 40), and not in its standard understanding as the disproportionate exposure of high-minority and low-income communities to environmental hazards. Nanotechnologies and nanomanufacturing processes are likely to produce both environmental benefits and burdens, so any meaningful EHS strategy must address research, planning, and policy outcomes necessary to ensure that nanotechnology reduces any unjust distribution of environmental burdens and benefits. It is crucial that any meaningful EHS strategy promote the development of nanotechnology ways that distribute the benefits justly – e.g., that remediation focus on toxins prevalent in environmental justice communities and that “environmental illnesses” on which resources are spent include those, such as asthma, that are more prevalent in environmental justice communities. Whether nanotechnologies are likely to exacerbate or alleviate environmental injustice depends on how they are implemented, disseminated, and situated (and who or what factors determine these); who controls them; what sorts of oversight and regulations pertain to them; and how effectively these are enforced. To address such components require substantial community engagement and significant policy development. The EHS strategic plan must, therefore, include a research strategy for these aspects of environmental justice.

Regulatory design. The EHS strategy makes no reference to fostering a deeper understanding of the suitability of existing regulatory structures and approaches to nanotechnology. There is real doubt about the efficacy of existing federal environmental and health statutes (e.g., TSCA, FIFRA), and the current capacity of federal regulatory agencies (e.g., EPA, FDA) to adequately address the expected deluge of nanoscale applications and products. The situation at the state level is of even greater concern since state governments are often in the front lines when addressing environmental and health concerns. The absence of a focus on the basic design or orientation of an effective 21st century regulatory regime is glaring.

Public Outreach and Education. Public outreach and education is among the core strategic goals of the NNI, yet the EHS research strategy nowhere addresses these concerns. Developing effective models and strategies for engaging the public about nanotechnology EHS concerns in general and in particular contexts (e.g. siting of a nanomanufacturing facility) should be part of any EHS research plan aimed at promoting the public good. For example, a crucial component of environmental justice – and of democracy – is the right of citizens to know about possible EHS concerns in their community. Strategies for communicating about EHS to communities that build on existing best practices need to be developed. Moreover, communities need to be engaged to determine what their EHS concerns are and what sorts of environmentally beneficial nanotechnologies would be most important for their community. A research strategy is therefore needed to develop effective methods of public engagement to teach and learn from a variety of “publics” regarding EHS concerns and goals. Such engagement is crucial to the responsible development of nanotechnology, and may also reveal research needs and goals that are not readily recognized by the EHS research community.

]]> http://2020science.org/2011/10/15/us-national-nanotechnology-initiative-to-release-latest-environmental-health-and-safety-ressearch-strategy-oct-20/feed/ 1 http://2020science.org/2011/10/10/new-models-needed-to-master-technology-trends-world-economic-forum/ http://2020science.org/2011/10/10/new-models-needed-to-master-technology-trends-world-economic-forum/#comments Mon, 10 Oct 2011 19:36:15 +0000 Andrew Maynard http://2020science.org/?p=4421

In his opening remarks at this year’s Summit on the Global Agenda, World Economic Forum founder and Executive Chairman Klaus Schwab placed the need for new models to support effective use of technology innovation firmly on the table.

This is the fourth year I have participated in the World Economic Forum Global Agenda Summit – an intense two-day meeting of over 700 thought leaders from around the world to explore global emerging issues and opportunities and to begin developing possible solutions.

On the Global Agenda Council on Emerging Technologies, we have been working hard on getting the opportunities and challenges presented by emerging technologies on the radar of top-level decision-makers.  Not because we think they should know about the latest cool technologies, but because we feel that effective solutions to complex challenges demand an integrated and proactive approach to technology innovation.

It’s been a tough task – high level decision makers are often uneasy talking about science and technology, and prefer to assume that “techies” will deliver technology-based solutions to pressing problems as and when they are necessary.  Sadly, this is a model that doesn’t work well, and is rapidly running out of steam in the face of accelerating technological capabilities, increasing global connectivity and diminishing resources.

So it was gratifying to hear WEF’s Executive Chairman Klaus Schwab highlight the need for new models to master technological trends in the Summit’s opening keynote.  Schwab emphasized the need for new models in five areas – the fifth being how we handle accelerating technologies:

“Ladies and gentlemen, fifth, we need a new model to master the trend of technology. The velocity of technological change, for which we are not really prepared, will accelerate in an exponential manner, having significant implication on all of us. What is particularly striking, for me as an engineer I may add, is the character-changing nature of technological change. Today’s technological evolution no longer solely affects what we are doing, but also affects who we are. Of course, the internet in many ways is still a tool. But it has also become a part of our internal DNA. This new dimension of technological progress and societal change is still in relative infancy. The other ways of forthcoming evolutions in technology such as genetics and STEM cell technology, nanotechnology, and numerous sciences and so on, will all provide opportunities and threats regarding the ultimation of ourselves. And this raises fundamental moral and ethical issues, for which we are not yet prepared, and for which we have to prepare new models.”

(The full address can be watch on YouTube)

This is an important high-level endorsement to think differently about how we develop and use technology innovation for the greatest good, and it sets the scene for the Council on Emerging Technologies’ work over the next year.

We still have our work cut out – but at least we know that we have the strong support as we explore new models of developing and deploying technology innovation as successfully, safely and sustainably as possible.

Question: What do you get if you place some of the leading thinkers and practitioners in the fields of technology innovation, risk and sustainability in the same room for two days?

Answer: one whopping headache!

Not because of the confusion and cacophony, but because of the overwhelming volume of information, ideas and insights that emerge.

To be honest, my less than coherent state at the end of this weeks symposium on Risk, Uncertainty and Sustainable Innovation wasn’t helped by moderating eight discussion panels over two days, and coordinating a handful more.  But without a doubt, this was a meeting that pushed the boundaries of how much a sane person can take in and remain sane.

The idea behind the symposium was simple: Bring a bunch of smart people with different perspectives together to explore the complex intersections between risk, sustainability and innovation, and see what happens.  In practice, we put together a format and a program that encouraged a candid exploration of realistic challenges and plausible approaches to developing sustainable applications of technology innovation, as well as using technology innovation to develop sustainable solutions to pressing problems.

The result: Two ideas-packed days of engaging, inspiring and challenging discussion on how businesses, governments and others can better ensure safe, successful and sustainable outcomes from technology innovation.

Having been in the thick of the discussions, I’m still trying to unravel and assimilate a lot of the ideas that emerged. And I missed a lot of the nuances – much of the time I was too intent on keeping the conversation going to be fully aware of its content.   Fortunately, the symposium was caught on video, and will be posted on the Risk Science Center’s Vimeo site in a week or so, so I will be able to revisit the discussions at my leisure.  But I did want to capture some of my initial impressions here.

New ideas for new audiences. Something I did want to achieve with the symposium was to expose people to ideas they may not have previously come across.  In this, the meeting was resounding success.  While some of the ideas being explored on innovation, sustainability, risk and communication may have been old hat to people that live and breathe this stuff, there were many others in the room who were hearing things for the first time that had a direct bearing on their work.

Innovation relating to communication, informatics, processes and systems is more relevant than “named” emerging technologies.  I had planned the first couple of sessions of the symposium to focus on technology innovation rather than risk, with the intention of ensuring the following discussions were grounded in plausibility rather than wild speculation.  I had expected these discussions to focus on the usual chestnuts – nanotechnology, synthetic biology, geoengineering, human enhancement etc. Instead, despite having experts in cutting edge emerging technologies on the panels, the discussion focused more on innovation in how we use knowledge and information – in areas like communication, informatics, processes and systems.  When pressed, panelists felt that the labels new areas of technology attract are less important than innovations that are allowing things to be done in new ways.

Risk and risk communication float to the top.  I was also intrigued to find that, try as I might, I could not keep risk and risk communication out of the conversation.  Even the panels looking at emerging areas of technology innovation naturally gravitated to the challenges of understanding and addressing emerging risks, as well as communicating information on risks and benefits effectively.

A clear synergy exists between risk, innovation and sustainability.  Although it was this synergy I wanted to explore through the symposium, I was surprised at how apparent it was that to many participants, successful technology innovation is critically dependent on taking an integrative approach to innovation, risk and sustainability.

There were also a number of personal highlights for me at the meeting, in addition to the discussion panels:

• John Viera – Director of Sustainability Environment and Safety Engineering at the Ford Motor Company – gave an inspiring talk on the company’s approach to sustainability.
• David Munson – the Robert J. Vlasic Dean of Engineering in the College of Engineering at the University of Michigan – beautifully articulated the need for integrative approaches to innovation and sustainability, as well as highlighting a number of innovative initiatives within the College of Engineering.
• James Wilsdon – Director of the Royal Society Science Policy Centre – gave a wonderful talk on technology innovation, going back to controversies over lightening rods in the 1700′s and highlighting how similar many of the issues we face today are to those society was facing three hundred years ago.
• Rodrigo Martinez and Mark Jones from the design company IDEO led delegates in a great team exercise in approaching challenges from different perspectives. I was particularly pleased with this session, as it demonstrated how design-inspired methodologies can be used to enable cross-expertise and innovative exploration of complex challenges.
• A panel of students and young professionals provided candid and insightful feedback on the first day’s proceedings – asking the questions and making the observations that more seasoned delegates were dying to ask and make, but were too scared to!  A number of people commenting that it was the best session of the day.

With the exception of the IDEO session, all of these talks will be available on Vimeo soon – along with the rest of the discussion panels.

All in all, it seemed to be a highly successful meeting – although I still have a pile of evaluation forms that I haven’t dared look at yet.  There were things that I would do differently next time – information overload was a major issue this year, and I’m not sure that giving myself so many panels to moderate was a great idea.  But in terms of exposing people to new ideas and sparking new insights, things seened to go pretty well.

Hopefully now, some of those sparks will catch light and grow.

Further information on the symposium can be found here.

The full set of photos from the symposium can be viewed on Flickr.

Videos of keynotes and panel discussions will be available on Vimeo shortly.

]]> http://2020science.org/2011/09/24/emerging-technologies-and-sustainability-whats-risk-got-to-do-with-it/feed/ 1 http://2020science.org/2011/08/25/the-human-project-needs-your-help/ http://2020science.org/2011/08/25/the-human-project-needs-your-help/#comments Fri, 26 Aug 2011 00:00:36 +0000 Andrew Maynard http://2020science.org/?p=4353

Here’s an interesting idea – build a free iPad app that kicks off a global conversation about the future of the human species.

The Human Project is the brain child of Erika Ilves & Anna Stillwell.  At its core is a yet-to-be-built iPad app that captures the essence of humanity past and future – who we are, where we are going, and how we are going to get there.  As Erika and Anna explain:

There are so many challenges that confront the species as a whole. The ones that get a lot of press (like climate change, food & water shortages, poverty, war, overpopulation and economic crises). The ones that don’t (like comets and asteroids, extreme experiments in science, technological terror and error). The ones that we humans don’t even imagine we can solve (like mega volcanoes, mega earthquakes, nearby supernova explosions, a dying sun, an aging universe). And there are plenty of visions too (like a space-faring civilization, transhumanism, zero carbon world, general artificial intelligence, the end of poverty, universal human rights, designing life and matter, zero nuclear weapons, the end of aging).

Everything is so fragmented. Every expert claims their issue matters most. Everyone fighting for their share of attention. So few have the big picture. Nobody seems to have their eye on the species as a whole.

So why not capture the big picture in a compellingly sleek package, make it free, and watch it take off?

Sounds like a great idea.  But here’s the kicker – someone has to pay for the up-front development.  To cover this, a crowd-funding initiative has just been launched on Kickstarter – if $25,000 are raised by Sept 28, a matching $25k is put in the pot, and the project goes ahead.

If you are interested in finding out more, check out the video below or visit www.kickstarter.com/projects/thehumanprojectapp/the-human-project-app

It’s been a while in the making, but with a little under five weeks to go, we have just posted the final program for the 2011 Risk Science Symposium (20-21 Sept).  And even though I say so myself, it’s a doozy!

Somehow, we are squeezing 45 invited speakers into the two days, and not any old speakers – the lineup includes John Viera – Ford Motor Co. Director of Sustainability Environment and Safety Engineering; Ray O. Johnson,  Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer of Lockheed Martin Corporation; Brian Ivanovic, Senior Vice President of Swiss Re; and Paul Anastas, Assistant Administrator for the Office of Research and Development and Science Advisor to the EPA.  And that’s just for starters.  We also have experts in innovation, policy, communication end engagement, risk, governance and sustainability.  We even have two leading designers from the company IDEO.

It’s going to be quite a party!

For more information on the speakers, check out the symposium website.  I’ve posted the program below, because I’m so excited about it, but you can also access it here.

The symposium is being held in Ann Arbor MI between Sept 20-21.  There are still a few spaces left, but we are nearing capacity – so if you are thinking of coming, it’s worth registering sooner rather than later.

________________________________________________________

September 20 – The benefits and challenges of technology innovation

7:30 AM Continental Breakfast and Registration

9:00 AM Welcome and Introductions
Andrew Maynard, Director, University of Michigan Risk Science Center

9:15 AM Opening Address
Martin Philbert, Dean, University of Michigan School of Public Health

9:30 AM Keynote: Innovate or perish – Why innovation and sustainability are critical to economic and social growth in the 21st century.
John Viera, Director of Sustainability Environment and Safety Engineering, Ford Motor Co.

10:00 AM Panel: What keeps us awake at night? The risks of getting technology innovation wrong.
Moderator: Andrew Maynard, Director, University of Michigan Risk Science Center
Panel Members:

• John Viera, Director of Sustainability Environment and Safety Engineering, Ford Motor Co.
• R. Alta Charo, Warren P. Knowles Professor of Law & Bioethics, University of Wisconsin
  
• Greg Bond, Corporate Director of Product Responsibility, Dow Chemical Company
  
• Hilary Sutcliffe, Director, MATTER
  

10:45 AM Break

11:15 AM Panel: Techno-hype or techno-reality – are we on the cusp of a new era in the history of human innovation?
Moderator: Andrew Maynard, Director, University of Michigan Risk Science Center
Panel members:

• Mark Banaszak Holl, Associate Vice-President, Office of Vice President for Research, University of Michigan
• Thomas Zurbuchen, Associate Dean for Entrepreneurial Programs, College of Engineering, University of Michigan
• Paula Olsiewski, Program Director, Alfred P. Sloan Foundation
• James Bagian, Director of the Center for Healthcare Engineering and Patient Safety; Professor in the Medical School and the College of Engineering, University of Michigan
  

12:00 PM Panel: How are new technologies changing the world, and what are some of the key emerging risk-related opportunities and challenges?
Moderator: Andrew Maynard, Director, University of Michigan Risk Science Center
Panel members:

• Gil Omenn, Professor of Internal Professor of Internal Medicine, Human Genetics, and Public Health and Director of the Center for Computational Medicine & Bioinformatics and the Proteomics Alliance for Cancer Research, University of Michigan
• James Baker, Ruth Dow Doan Professor of Medicine and Bioengineering, Director of Michigan Nanotechnology Institute for Medicine
• Ann Marie Sastry, Arthur F. Thurnau Professor of Mechanical, Biomedical and Materials Science and Engineering, University of Michigan; CEO and Co-Founder of Satki3
• Jörg Lahann, Associate Professor of Chemical Engineering, University of Michigan

12:45 PM Lunch and poster session

2:00 PM Panel: New technologies – new risks? What are the implications of a technologically complex world on the way we think about risks of novel technologies and practices?
Moderator: Shobita Parthasarathy, Associate Professor, Ford School of Public Policy
Panel members:

• Paul Anastas, Assistant Administrator for the Office of Research and Development. Science Advisor to the EPA
  
• Mark Banaszak Holl, Associate Vice-President, Office of Vice President for Research, University of Michigan
  
• David Goldston, Director, Government Affairs, Natural Resources Defense Council
  
• Jameson Wetmore, Assistant Professor, Arizona State University

2:45 PM Panel: The risk toolbox: What are we good at, and what do we need to learn to do better?
Moderator: Martin Philbert, Dean, University of Michigan School of Public Health
Panel members:

• Adam Finkel, Executive Director, Penn Program on Regulation
• Bernard Goldstein, Professor of Environmental and Occupational Health, University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health
• Jo Anne Shatkin, CEO, CLF Ventures
• Carlos Peña, Director of Emerging Technology Programs in the Office of the Chief Scientist, Office of the Commissioner, FDA

3:30 PM Break

3:45 PM Panel: Innovation, uncertainty and risk: Reflections on the day’s discussions
Moderator: Andrew Maynard, Director, University of Michigan Risk Science Center

• David Bidwell, Research Fellow, University of Michigan, Serving as program manager for the Great Lakes Integrated Sciences and Assessments Center (GLISA)
• Diana Bowman, Assistant Professor, Department of Health Management Policy, University of Michigan School of Public Health
• Erica Blom, PhD Candidate in Sociology and Public Policy, University of Michigan
• Ahleah Rohr, Masters of Public Health student, University of Michigan

4:30 PM Adjourn

6:00 PM Reception and Dinner (University of Michigan Art Museum)
Dinner speaker: Rodrigo Martinez, Life Sciences Chief Strategist, IDEO. Mark Jones, Associate Partner and Service Innovation Lead, IDEO.

9:00 PM End of day

September 21 – Risk, Uncertainty and Sustainable Innovation – Exploring options

7:00 AM Continental Breakfast

8:00 AM Welcome and introductory remarks

8:15 AM Keynote: Thinking differently about Risk, Innovation and Sustainability
David Zaruk, Risk Governance Analyst, Risk Perception Management

8:45 AM Panel: Ensuring sustainable innovation-based solutions to global issues – how significant are risk and uncertainty, and how should we handle them?
Moderator: Don Scavia, Director, University of Michigan Graham Environmental Sustainability Institute
Panel members:

• Ray O. Johnson, Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer, Lockheed Martin Corporation
  
• James Wilsdon, Director, Royal Society Science Policy Centre
  
• Greg Bond, Corporate Director of Product Responsibility, Dow Chemical Company
• Paul Anastas, Assistant Administrator for the Office of Research and Development. Science Advisor to the EPA
  

9:30 AM Panel: Thinking differently about risk and sustainability I: How can we manage emerging health risks more proactively?
Moderator: Andrew Maynard, Director, University of Michigan Risk Science Center
Panel members:

• Brian Ivanovic, Senior Vice President, Swiss Re
• R. Alta Charo, Warren P. Knowles Professor of Law & Bioethics, University of Wisconsin
• Larisa Rudenko, Director of Animal Biotechnology, Center for Veterinary Medicine, FDA
• Adam Finkel, Executive Director, Penn Program on Regulation

10:15 AM Break

10:30 AM Panel: Thinking differently about risk and sustainability II: Are there new models we should be exploring?
Moderator: Andrew Maynard, Director, University of Michigan Risk Science Center
Panel members:

• Bernard Goldstein, Professor of Environmental and Occupational Health, University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health
• Dan Greenbaum, President, Health Effects Institute
• Brian Ivanovic, Senior Vice President, Swiss Re
• John Viera, Director of Sustainability Environment and Safety Engineering, Ford Motor Co
• David Zaruk, Risk Governance Analyst, Risk Perception Management

11:15 AM Panel: Ubiquitous Monitoring and Risk: What are the implications for Public Health and Sustainability?
Moderator: John Stone, Co-Director, Center for the Study of Standards in Society, Michigan State University
Panel members:

• Lawrence Busch, University Distinguished Professor of Sociology and founder and former
  Director of the Center for the Study of Standards in Society at Michigan State University
  
• John Spink,Assistant Professor and Associate Director for the Anti-Counterfeit and
  Product Protection Program, Michigan State University
  
• Kyle Powys Whyte, Assistant Professor of Philosophy and affiliated faculty at the Center for the Study of Standards in Society, the Peace and Justice Studies Specialization, and the American Indian Studies Program

12:00 PM Lunch, followed by keynote presentation

12:30 PM Keynote: Technology innovation, risk and policy in the 21st century – a UK perspective.
James Wilsdon, Director, Royal Society Science Policy Centre

1:15 PM: Panel: What are the roots of risk perceptions and what are their implications for forward-thinking approaches to addressing risk?
Moderator: Andrew Maynard, Director, Universiry of Michigan Risk Science Center
Panel members:

• Brian Zikmund-Fisher, Assistant Professor, Health Behavior and Health Education, Research Assistant Professor, Internal Medicine, University of Michigan
  
• Julie Downs, Director of the Center for Risk Perception and Communication. Social and Decision Sciences at
  Carnegie Mellon University
  
• Michael Siegrist, Professor for Consumer Behavior Institute for Environmental Decisions (IED), ETH Zurich, Switzerland

2:00 PM Panel: Risk, uncertainty and social engagement – how can we do better?
Moderator: Andrew Maynard, Director, University of Michigan Risk Science Center
Panel members:

• Britt Erickson, Senior editor in the government and policy group Chemical & Engineering News
• Larry Bell, Senior Vice President – Strategic Initiatives, Museum of Science, Boston. Director of the Nanoscale
  Informal Science Education Network
• Rae Ostman, Director of National Collaborations, Sciencenter, NY
  
• Hilary Sutcliffe, Director, MATTER

2:45 PM Moving forward, what are what are the most important next steps to ensuring healthy lives and a growing economy through technology innovation?
Moderator: Andrew Maynard, Director, University of Michigan Risk Science Center

3:15 PM Close of symposium

]]> http://2020science.org/2011/08/19/final-program-posted-for-the-risk-uncertainty-and-sustainable-innovation-symposium/feed/ 0 http://2020science.org/2011/08/15/want-to-know-about-teens-and-social-media-from-the-horses-mouth-watch-this-space/ http://2020science.org/2011/08/15/want-to-know-about-teens-and-social-media-from-the-horses-mouth-watch-this-space/#comments Mon, 15 Aug 2011 22:27:57 +0000 Andrew Maynard http://2020science.org/?p=4333

If you are a teen who uses YouTube (or know of one – maybe even your own teenager), please think seriously about posting a response to this video:

(You can also watch it directly on YouTube here).

Over on the Risk Science Blog, I’ve just posted a piece about Baroness Susan Greenfield’s views on the internet and society.  Something that concerns her a lot is how the internet, gaming and social media might be affecting teenagers.  But hardly anyone it seems actually bothers to ask teens what they think.

The video above was posted by my daughter Jade on her YouTube collab channel.  She has been talking with her fellow collaborators for a while now on asking their followers for thoughts on social media and being a teenager.  I’m afraid my interest in Susan Greenfield’s ideas tipped the balance, and encouraged them to get a move on with posting the three questions in the video.

This seems like an important opportunity though for teens to talk about social media on their own terms, and in a way that will help “experts” who think they know what is going on from actually finding out what it’s like for teenagers in today’s hyper-connected world.

So please encourage anyone you know to watch and post a response.

And check back in a few weeks to see the result.

Thanks!

In 2004, the first International Symposium on Occupational Health Implications of Nanomaterials was held in Buxton in the UK.  Seven years later, I’m preparing for a discussion panel at the fifth meeting in this very successful community-led series (being held this week in Boston MA), and looking through the research recommendations we made at the Buxton meeting.  Disturbingly, they look remarkably similar to recommendations still being made.

The report from that original meeting can be found here, although I have also reproduced the research recommendations from that report below.  As there are a rather lot of recommendations (and I need to cover these in some rational way in this Friday’s discussion panel), I thought it would be interesting to filter them through the Wordle Creator.

This is what I got:

Of course things have moved along a lot in some areas over the past few years, and in some cases priorities have changed and new priorities have arisen.  But looking at the – admittedly qualitative – Wordle, it’s remarkable how many of these old issues remain contemporary issues.

So are we making progress, or are we simply going round in circles?  This is what I hope to tease out of my panel of experts this Friday!

In the meantime, here are the research/action recommendations we made back in 2004:

6.2 RECOMMENDATIONS FOR FILLING GAPS IN KNOWLEDGE

The following recommendations were made within the workshops addressing current knowledge gaps in understanding the potential health implications of nanotechnology in the workplace. Inclusion in this report does not constitute endorsement by NIOSH and HSE

6.2.1 Measurement of exposure to nanoparticles

1. there needs to be internationally agreed definitions of the particles that we should be measuring to assess exposure.

2. the health-related importance of agglomerated nanoparticles as opposed to single discrete nanoparticles should be addressed to ensure that measurements include all particles that may have health effects.

3. further research is needed to define the biologically relevant parameters that should be measured.

4. until more is known about which parameters should be measured, it is recommended that multiple parameters should be measured in parallel, if possible. Information is then gained about relationships between parameters to allow links with past exposure data.

5. simple, relatively cheap personal monitors for measuring exposure to nanoparticles should be developed. These should be for particle surface area or number as they are likely to be the most biologically relevant parameters.

6. as a crude identification of nanoaerosol emissions, the measurement of particle number concentrations using a hand-held CPC is considered to be useful as a process control tool.

7. strategies for differentiating between new engineered nanoparticles and ambient combustion-derived nanoparticles should be developed.

6.2.2 Control of exposure to nanoparticles

1. the effectiveness of engineering control methods, such as containment, local exhaust ventilation (LEV) systems, etc., in controlling exposure to nanoparticles should be assessed.

2. the efficiency of HEPA filtration systems used in extraction equipment fitted to LEV system (especially where the air is recirculated) and vacuum cleaners should be assessed for nanoparticles. The integrity of seals is particularly important.

3. research and development should be carried out to improve the control of exposure to nanoparticles during breakdown, maintenance and clean up procedures.

4. the propensity for powdered nanomaterials to release nanostructured particles into the air should be assessed. The usefulness of current methods of dustiness testing for nanomaterials should be investigated.

5. mechanisms should be put in place to enable good control practice for nanoparticles to be shared between companies and industry sectors.

6. the efficiency of respiratory protection equipment for minimising exposure to nanoparticles should be investigated, especially in terms of face-seal leakage and for very small particles (< 5nm).

7. the penetration of nanoparticles through skin protection equipment (gloves, boiler suits, etc) should be investigated.

6.2.3 Mechanisms underlying toxicity of nanoparticles

1. the possible mechanisms by which engineered nanoparticles have the potential to translocate through the body and to affect cells in host organs should be further investigated at the molecular level.

2. the effect of the state of aggregation on the toxicity of nanoparticles should be investigated.

3. work should be carried out to determine the relative contributions to adverse health effects of the generic size of the nanoparticle and the role of surface chemistry including any agent that it may carry.

4. relevant test methods should be developed to investigate the genotoxic hazards and risks of nanoparticles in their various applications.

5. it was suggested that OELs exposure limits are still set on a mass basis as well as on data including surface area and particle number.

6. screening methods should be developed for new nanoparticles that are based on biochemical mechanisms and susceptible targets.

7. existing data on toxicity of other particulate materials should be used for comparison of hazards.

8. more relevant (in-vivo) screening methods should be used to assess potential mutagenicity of nanoparticles.

6.2.4 Human experience in exposure to nanoparticles

1. a multidisciplinary approach was necessary to investigate the health effects of nanoparticles, including toxicological mechanisms of action.

2. an agreed definition of nanomaterials and nanoparticles is required.

3. an agreed exposure metric is required.

4. development of practical devices which, with development of agreed exposure measurement techniques, would enable reliable measurement of workplace exposures to nanoparticles is required.

5. no agreed health surveillance approaches were identified.

6.3 RECOMMENDATIONS FOR REGULATORY ACTION ON THE CONTROL OF EXPOSURE TO NANOMATERIALS

The views and recommendations expressed in this section are solely those of the workshop participants in the First International Symposium on Nanotechnology and Occupational Health. Inclusion in this document does not constitute endorsement by NIOSH or HSE.

6.3.1 Regulations for nanomaterials

When occupational health and safety regulatory authorities review the adequacy of their regulations with respect to nanomaterials the following issues should be considered:

1. determine the number of people exposed and at what levels;

2. evaluate whether mass-based exposure limits are adequate;

3. investigate what measurement methods are available;

4. review adequacy of personal protection equipment for nanoparticles;

5. determine if there are any susceptible groups in the workforce;

6. evaluate whether a “skin” notation is needed;

7. consider the adequacy of labelling and of the material safety data sheets;

8. evaluate whether nano-forms of a material should be considered to be a new substance (as in Notification of New Substances [NONS] regulations);

9. develop a framework to categorise or group nanomaterials for hazard classification and exposure limits;

10. recommend interim measures and generic approaches until more specific information is available on risk from nanomaterials.

The current regime was considered to provide an adequate framework for regulations with the following suggestions for improvement:

1. determine if current toxicological protocols are adequate;

2. evaluate (as an EU.-specific issue) whether current production triggers (in NONS) are suitable for nanomaterials;

3. consider establishment of new ultrafine sampling convention;

4. ensure that regulations are internationally harmonised.

6.3.2 Occupational exposure limits

1. it was concluded that there was currently insufficient data upon which to set any occupational exposure limits (OELs) for nanoparticles.

2. the one exception was nano titanium dioxide particles for which there is a reasonable data on pulmonary and dermal toxicity.

3. as a way forward to enable safe production of nanomaterials, it was recommended that best practice in controlling exposure be deployed.

In order for regulatory authorities to set OELs for nanomaterials, the following was recommended:

1. substantial research funding should be available to conduct exposure and toxicity studies on new and existing nanomaterials;

2. exposure and toxicity studies should be carried out by multidisciplinary teams;

3. consideration should be given to co-exposures, synergisms, exposure modifiers, smokers, sensitive populations;

4. animal toxicity studies should include multi-generational studies.

6.3.3 Risk assessment and exposure control

1. it was concluded that there is insufficient information to determine whether current methods to assess risk and control exposure are adequate.

2. the process of risk assessment for nanomaterials should begin with approaches used for traditional workplace exposures, treating nanomaterials as a distinct topic.

3. research on the adequacy of current methods of control should carried out as soon as possible.

4. specific recommendations for good control practice should be developed.

5. it was recommended that a hierarchy of controls specifically targeted at nanomaterials should be produced.

In order to manage the production and use of nanomaterials in a safe way the following interim measures were proposed:

1. examine and build on our knowledge about “known” categories of ultrafine particles such as diesel exhaust and welding fumes.

2. assemble specific examples of when nanoparticle risks or nanotechnology process risks are less than or greater than risks for materials or processes involving “traditional” materials.

3. take advantage of opportunities to limit occupational exposures to nanomaterials to levels that are as low a reasonably achievable.

4. develop methods to identify manufactured nanoparticles in the presence of background particles.

5. identify suitable nanomaterial surrogates for use in studies to improve instrumentation, control technology, and toxicology for nanomaterials.

6. develop and disseminate nanoparticle assessment and control strategies for small and medium enterprises (e.g., “risk management” or “control banding” toolboxes).

7. seek global harmonisation of approaches.

8. establish easily accessible databases and information sources.

9. improve the content of Material Safety Data Sheets (MSDS) and other communications.

10. maintain a sense of urgency to answer practical questions now and to establish partnerships and approaches needed to address underlying questions of risk assessment, control, and toxicity mechanisms for nanomaterials.

6.3.4 Classification of nanomaterials

1. there is a need for new nomenclature to allow nanomaterials to be clearly identified and described.

2. current nomenclature and means of describing complex materials in NONS are not sufficient for nanomaterials.

3. materials in particles less than ~100 nm were considered to behave differently than micrometer-sized particles.

4. the current regulatory system was considered to be inadequate to control exposure to nanomaterials.

5. it was recommended that in the EU, all materials under an agreed particle size (possibly < 100 nm) should be considered new materials for NONS and REACH. (delegates were split on this recommendation).

6.3.5 Risk management

1. there is no need for a new risk management paradigm when considering the production and use of nanomaterials.

but there is a need for new tools to increase understanding of each part of the current risk management paradigm. They are:

consider adopting the precautionary principle;

reduce uncertainty by increasing knowledge through science;

consider perception or risk issues such as external risk, subjective human 
experience of risk and quality of information;

understand the paucity of information on the possible long-term effects such as 
carcinogencity, foetal exposure, neurotoxicity and cardiovascular effects and on the population at risk including the workforce and susceptible groups such as children and the elderly.

The complete report from the 2004 Buxton meeting is available at www.hsl.gov.uk/media/1646/nanosymrep_final.pdf

Update 8/11/11: Link to 2004 Buxton meeting report corrected

The materials that most current regulations were designed to handle are pretty simple by today’s standards. Sure they can do some nasty things to the environment or your body if handled inappropriately. And without a doubt some of the risks associated with these “simple” materials are not yet well understood – especially when it comes to long term and trans-generational impacts.

Yet it’s hard to escape that reality that researchers are now designing new materials from the ground up that behave in novel ways, that have few analogs in the world of conventional materials, and that exhibit different properties according to the environment they are in. And as they do, it is becoming increasingly apparent that many of the regulations we rely on are ill-equip them to deal with the pending flood of sophisticated materials that is coming our way.

The development of relatively simple engineered nanomaterials in recent years has highlighted this disconnect between established regulations and the new demands being placed on them. Fortunately, many of the first nanomaterials to emerge have not presented insurmountable challenges, and regulators have been able to stretch existing regulatory frameworks to cover them (although even this in itself has not been an easy task). But these are just the beginning of a trend in novel materials designed and engineered at the nanoscale that will transcend current regulatory mindsets.

So what what are the options here? Before this question can be answered, a clearer understanding of the issues being faced needs to be developed.

Some of these are explored by Graeme Hodge, Di Bowman and myself in a commentary in the August 2011 edition of the journal Nature Materials.

“The problem of regulating sophisticated materials” [DOI: dx.doi.org/10.1038/nmat3085 - paywall] explores issues surrounding the safe introduction and use of complex new materials such as engineered nanomaterials, and suggests that there are seven key regulatory challenges that need to be addressed for progress to be made.

Unfortunately, I can’t reproduce the commentary in full here because of copyright restrictions. However, much of it draws on and builds upon an analysis presented in the recent International Handbook on Regulating Nanotechnologies.

What I thought it would be useful to do here is to summarize the seven challenges discussed in both the Handbook and the Nature Materials commentary. These are summarized from the final chapter of the Handbook (the full chapter can be downloaded here) – further information can be found both in the Handbook chapter and in the Nature Materials Commentary.

I must confess to being rather saddened this morning to read Roger Highfield’s New Scientist blog on the state of nanotechnology in the UK.  Hot on the heels of reports that the company Nanoco is threatening to leave Britain for more fertile grounds, it left me wondering what has happened to the promise of ten years ago, when the UK was without doubt a player in the nanotech arena.  But the real sadness comes from that fact that, beyond the nanotech hype, nanoscale science and engineering are without doubt going to underpin some of the most significant technological breakthroughs of the coming years – and the UK is in severe danger of missing the boat.

Having left the UK eleven years ago to work in the US, I have retained a deep and personal interest in how Britain has invested in nanotechnology.  Back in 2004, the UK was at the forefront of the movement to develop economically strong and socially responsive nanotechnologies – the country was home to some of the world’s most prominent experts in the field; interdisciplinary research centers in Oxford and Cambridge were breaking new ground under internationally recognized leadership;  companies like Oxford-based Oxonica were paving the way to developing exciting new nanotech products; researchers in Edinburgh were leading the world in nanomaterial safety research; and the Royal Society set the pace globally developing this new technology responsibly.  Even in the US, where funding vastly outmatched that available in the UK, British research, innovation and action were having a sizable impact.

Working closely with the US and international nanotechnology community, I couldn’t help but be just a little bit proud of what the UK was achieving, and excited by where things were going.

So what went wrong?

Sitting here three thousand miles away, I’m not too sure.  Certainly rapid turnover in UK government nanotechnology leadership didn’t help sustain momentum here – the team that was leading the charge in the early 2000′s had moved on by the late 2000′s, with no clear succession plan in place.  What started as a clear vision and strategy appeared to get bogged down in uncomprehending bureaucracy.  R&D funding was not forthcoming and – more importantly – was not fully leveraged to ensure strategic impact.  And moves to ensure the safe development of nanotechnology ended up dominating the field- quite possibly at the expense of innovation.

There must be a lot more to the story than this, and I would be interested in hearing from people who have been in the thick of the rise and fall of UK nanotechnology over the past decade.  But without a doubt, the UK has moved from being a leader in the field to something of a straggler.

A personal experience I didn’t write about at the time foreshadowed this nearly two years ago.  I was in London for a series of events that happened to coincide with  a meeting of the UK Nanotechnologies Stakeholder Forum, overseen by DEFRA – the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs.  As I was in the area and had some time, I went along.  At the time I was Chief Science Advisor to the Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies, and involved with working with and advising governments and organizations around the world on nanotechnology.  Given my work at the time, you’d have thought this might have been an opportunity for the forum to squeeze me for all I was worth on the current state of play of nanotechnology in the US and around the world.  As it was, I was relegated to being a passive observer – and not asked once to contribute to the meeting. (Just in case my memory was playing tricks I checked – these are the minutes of that meeting, where you can read my eloquently short contributions!).

The point here is not that I was ignored – that doesn’t bother me – but that the organizers of the main UK stakeholder forum on nanotechnology didn’t even realize that they could have pumped me for insider information on stuff that was directly relevant to nanotechnology in the UK.  Or they didn’t care – one of the other.

Two years on, nanotechnology in the UK is a shadow of its former self, and successful nanotech companies are threatening to move away – at a time when the commercial opportunities of nanoscale science and engineering are becoming increasingly clear.

Here I must clarify that I am often a little down on the brand of “nanotechnology” – there a lot of hype, re-branding and marketing associated with the term.  But beyond the brand, the science and engineering of working at the nanoscale – using the fundamental building blocks of everything in innovative and imaginative ways – is sound.  Whether in the area of materials, biology, or at the intersection of the two, the coming decades are going to be dominated by economies that have invested in the expertise, tools and frameworks to exploit nanoscale engineering and technology.

And in this emerging world, where will the UK be?

]]> http://2020science.org/2011/07/08/nanotechnology-has-the-uk-dropped-the-nano-ball/feed/ 3 http://2020science.org/2011/07/06/dont-define-nanomaterials-new-commentary-in-nature-and-an-early-draft/ http://2020science.org/2011/07/06/dont-define-nanomaterials-new-commentary-in-nature-and-an-early-draft/#comments Thu, 07 Jul 2011 00:20:09 +0000 Andrew Maynard http://2020science.org/?p=4252

One of the problems with publishing in journals like Nature is that it can get a little pricey for people to read your work if they (or their organization) don’t subscribe.  For instance, if you want to read the commentary I’ve just had published on defining engineered nanomaterials for regulatory purposes, you are facing a hefty $32 fee to push through the paywall.  Now I know that I write interesting stuff.  But I’m not sure it’s that interesting!

Which is why I have just posted an earlier draft of the piece over on the Risk Science Blog.

This isn’t as focused or specific as the published commentary.  But it gives a rough idea of where I’m coming from.

And just because I can, I have also posted link to a later draft, and some notes on the editing process – so that those of you with more time than  sense can study in depth the evolution of the piece from initial scribblings to final product!

The early draft can be read here, and the published commentary “Don’t define nanomaterials” (Nature 475, 31 2011) can be accessed here.

It must be Nanotechnology Regulation week in Washington DC.  Yesterday, two federal agencies and the White House released documents that grapple with the effective regulation of products that depend on engineered nanomaterials.

In a joint memorandum, the Office of Science and Technology Policy, the Office of Management and Budget and the Office of the United States Trade Representative laid out Policy Principles for the U.S. Decision Making Concerning Regulations and Oversight of Applications of Nanotechnology and Nanomaterials.

On the same day, the US Environmental Protection Agency posted a prepublication notice on Policies Concerning Products Containing Nanoscale Materials.

And to cap it all, the US Food and Drug Administration released Draft Guidance for Industry on Considering Whether an FDA-Regulated Product Involves the Application of Nanotechnology.

A busy week for nanotechnology regulation!

White House Memo on Nanotechnology Regulation Policy Principles

The White House memorandum is the latest document to come out of the Emerging Technologies Interagency Policy Coordination Committee – ETIPC for short.  In part, it is a response to the 2010 review of the National Nanotechnology Initiative by the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, and in particular the concern expressed by PCAST that

“In the absence of sound science on the safe use of nanomaterials and of technologies and products containing them, the chance of unintentionally harming people and the environment increases.  At the same time, uncertainty and speculation about potential risks threaten to undermine consumer and business confidence.”

Correspondingly, this is a memorandum that is heavily focused on science-driven regulation, and the avoidance of knee-jerk responses to speculative concerns.

Reading through it, a number of themes emerge, including:

• Existing regulatory frameworks provide a firm foundation for the oversight of nanomaterials, but there is a need to respond to new scientific evidence on potential risks, and to consider administrative and legal modifications to the regulatory landscape should the need arise.
• Regulatory action on nanomaterials should be based on scientific evidence of risk, and not on definitions of materials that do not necessarily reflect the evidence-based likelihood of a material causing harm.
• There should be no prior judgement on whether nanomaterials are intrinsically benign or harmful, in the absence of supporting scientific evidence.
• Transparency and communication are important to ensuring effective evidence-based regulation.

Overall, this is a strong set of policy principles that lays the groundwork for developing regulation that is grounded in science and not swayed by speculative whims, and yet is responsive and adaptive to emerging challenges.  Gratifyingly, the memorandum begins to touch on some of the concerns I have expressed previously about approaches to nanomaterial regulation that seem not to be evidence-based.  There is a reasonable chance that they will help move away from the dogma that engineered nanomaterials should be regulated separately because they are new, to a more nuanced and evidence-based approach to ensuring the safe use of increasingly sophisticated materials.  Where it perhaps lacks is in recognizing the importance of other factors in addition to science in crafting effective regulation, and in handling uncertainty in decision making.  But it is undoubtedly a move in the right direction.  The principles are listed at the end of this post.

EPA Draft Pesticides and Nanomaterials Policies

The second piece in this triumvirate is a prepublication version of a document from EPA that should appear in the Federal Register next week, titled “Pesticides; Policies Concerning Products Containing nanoscale Materials; Opportunities for Public Comment.”

As the title makes very clear, this is a statement from the EPA that is setting out draft policies for dealing with nanomaterials in pesticide products – materials such as nanoscale silver particles – and asking for public comment.  This is the latest iteration in a process that has been going on for some time to address the use of nanoscale silver as an antimicrobial agent, together with other antimicrobial, fungicidal and pesticide uses of nanomaterials.

The crux of the proposed policy is a requirement for manufacturers to let EPA know when a pesticide product contains an engineered nanomaterial – irrespective of whether it is an active or passive ingredient in the product. EPA acknowledges that the presence of a nanoscale material in a product does not necessarily indicate the possibility that it will exhibit new or unusual risks – but the agency intends to use this information as a trigger for a more thorough evaluation of products that might raise concerns.

This is a long and somewhat convoluted document, that spends some time outlining what the agency considers is an engineered nanomaterial, and reviewing nanomaterial hazard data.

Reading the document, EPA still seems somewhat tangled up with definitions of engineered nanomaterials. After outlining conventional attributes associated with engineered nanomaterials, including structures between ~1 – 100 nm and unique or novel properties, the document states

“These elements do not readily work in a regulatory context because of the high degree of subjectivity involved with interpreting such phrases as “unique or novel properties” or “manufactured or engineered to take advantage of these properties” Moreover the contribution of these subjective elements to risk has not been established.”

This aligns with where my own thinking has been moving in recent years.  Yet following this statement, the document reverts back to considering nanoparticles between 1 – 100 nm as the archetypal nanomaterial, and intimates “novel” properties such as “larger surface area per unit volume and/or quantum effects” as raising new risk concerns.

I also found the background information on potential hazards somewhat lopsided, as a litany of studies were cited that indicate a number of potential hazards associated with a range of materials, but without clear information on how this might translate to plausible and quantifiable risk.

At the end of the day, I found this to be a mixed bag of a document – some useful information and some evidence of new thinking, but all surrounded by a rather unfocused assessment.   However, it is a draft that has been put out for public comment, which means that there is an opportunity here to tighten it up considerably in the final version.

I must also add that I was impressed by the final section on Questions for Comment – here you will find a list of highly relevant questions that are the clearest indication in the document that EPA understands many of the critical issues here, and is genuinely looking for expert input to address them.

Interestingly though, the EPA document does not reference the White House memorandum on Policy Principles published at the same time – unlike my third and final document in this set from FDA.

FDA Draft Guidance for Industry on Products and Nanotechnology

The FDA Guidance for Industry: Considering Whether an FDA-Regulated Product Involves the Application of Nanotechnology is a very different kettle of fish to the EPA document.  It is overtly responsive to the White House memo; it demonstrates a deep understanding of the issues surrounding nanotechnology and regulation; and it is mercifully concise.

To be fair, the scope of the draft guidance is limited to helping manufacturers understand how the agency is approaching nanotechnology-enabled products under their purview.  But this is something it does well.

One of the more significant aspects of the guidance is the discussion on regulatory definitions of nanomaterials.  Following a line of reasoning established some years ago, the agency focuses on material properties rather than rigid definitions:

“FDA has not to date established regulatory definitions of “nanotechnology,” “nanoscale” or related terms… Based on FDA’s current scientific and technical understanding of nanomaterials and their characteristics, FDA believes that evaluations of safety, effectiveness or public health impact of such products should consider the unique properties and behaviors that nanomaterials may exhibit”

Of course, this still begs the question “what is a nanomaterial in FDA’s eyes?”  The agency answer by stating:

At this time, when considering whether an FDA-regulated product contains nanomaterials or otherwise involves the application of nanotechnology, FDA will ask:

1. Whether an engineered material or end product has at least one dimension in the nanoscale range (approximately 1 nm to 100 nm); or
2. Whether an engineered material or end product exhibits properties or phenomena, including physical or chemical properties or biological effects, that are attributable to its dimension(s), even if these dimensions fall outside the nanoscale range, up to one micrometer.

The guidance goes on to state

“These considerations apply not only to new products, but also may apply when manufacturing changes alter the dimensions, properties, or effects of an FDA-regulated product or any of its components. Additionally, they are subject to change in the future as new information becomes available, and to refinement in future product-specific guidance documents.”

FDA is clearly aiming for responsive and adaptive regulation here.

Reading the first of the two criteria above and the associated justification in the guidance, I can’t help feeling that FDA is still trying to justify responding to sub-100 nm scale materials based on assumptions of risk rather than evidence.  But the second criteria is important, because it opens the door to considering physical form and structure as a factor in determining potential risk irrespective of scale – as long as a material can come into intimate biological contact with a person.  This is a significant move, as it supports evidence-based decision-making on materials and products under FDA’s jurisdiction, irrespective of what technological label is applied to them.

That said, there remains some confusion as to how this criteria will be applied, and the reasoning behind it. Clearly, there is an aim here to capture supra-100 nm materials that nevertheless exhibit biological behavior associated with a nanometer-scale structure – including agglomerates, coated materials and hierarchical structures.  Yet the criteria is also said to have been selected to “exclude macro-scaled materials that may have properties attributable to their dimension(s) but are not likely relevant to nanotechnology”.  This statement seems to hark back to an assumption that “nanotechnology” is something that needs to be regulated, rather than focusing on materials and products that run the risk of slipping through the regulatory net – no matter what they are called.

But like the EPA document, the FDA guidance is still in draft form, and open to public comment.  And so is still very much a work in progress.

Overall, all three of these documents seem to be heading in the right direction if evidence-based, responsive and responsible regulations are the end goal.  There is still a way to go for both FDA and EPA before regulatory policy escapes being mesmerized by “nanotechnology”. But with strong science-driven policy principles emerging from the White House, the odds of this occurring are looking decidedly more healthy.

_____________

While House Policy Principles for the U.S. decision-Making Concerning Regulation and Oversight of Applications of nanotechnology and Nanomaterials:

In addressing issues raised by nanomaterials, agencies will adhere to the Principles for Regulation and Oversight of Emerging Technologies. Specifically, to the extent permitted by law, Federal agencies will:

• To ensure scientific integrity, base their decisions on the best available scientific evidence, separating purely scientific judgments from judgments of policy to the extent feasible;
• Seek and develop adequate information with respect to the potential effects of nanomaterials on human health and the environment and take into account new knowledge when it becomes available;
• To the extent feasible and subject to valid constraints (involving, for example, national security and confidential business information), develop relevant information in an open and transparent manner, with ample opportunities for stakeholder involvement and public participation;
• Actively communicate information to the public regarding the potential benefits and risks associated with specific uses ofnanomate rials;
• Base their decisions on an awareness of the potential benefits and the potential costs of such regulation and oversight, including recognition of the role of limited information and risk in decision making;
• To the extent practicable, provide sufficient flexibility in their oversight and regulation to accommodate new evidence and learning on nanomaterials;
• Consistent with current statutes and regulations, strive to reach an appropriate level of consistency in risk assessment and risk management across the Federal Government, using standard oversight approaches to assess risks and benefits and manage risks, considering safety, health and environmental impacts, and exposure mitigation;
• Mandate risk management actions appropriate to, and commensurate with, the degree of risk identified in an assessment.
• Seek to coordinate with one another, with state authorities, and with stakeholders to address the breadth of issues, including health and safety, economic, environmental, and ethical issues (where applicable) associated with nanomaterials; and
• Encourage coordinated and collaborative research across the international community and clearly communicate the regulatory approaches and understanding of the United States to other nations.

I thought I’d post this spoof presentation for the fun of it on the responsible development of “unobtainium”, which seems to have some remarkable similarities with some other emerging technologies:

Last week, the Victoria branch of the Australian Education Union (AEU) passed a resolution recommending that “workplaces use only nanoparticle-free sunscreen” and that sunscreens used by members on children are selected from those “highlighted in the Safe Sunshine Guide produced by Friends of the Earth” as being nano-free.  The AEU also resolved to provide the Friends of the Earth Safe Sunscreen Guide and Recommendations to all workplaces their members are associated with.  Given what is currently known about sunscreens – nano and otherwise, I can’t help wonder whether this is an ill-advised move.

The debate over the safety or otherwise of nanoparticle-containing sunscreens has been going on for over a decade now.  Prompted by early concerns over possible penetration through the skin and into the body of the nanosized titanium dioxide and/or zinc oxide particles used in these products – and potential adverse impacts that might result – there has been a wealth of research into whether these small particles can actually get through the skin when applied in a sunscreen.  And the overall conclusion is that they cannot.  There have been a small number of studies that demonstrate that, under specific conditions, some types of nanoparticle might penetrate through the upper layers of the skin.  But the overwhelming majority of studies have failed to find either plausible evidence for significant penetration, or plausible evidence for adverse health impacts – a body of evidence that led the Environmental Working Group to make an about-face from questioning the use of nanoparticle-containing sunscreens to endorsing them in 2010.

So why is the AEU now advising against their use?  And why are they advocating selecting sunscreens based on a document that does not provide evidence-based advice on efficacy or safety – and may end up leading to decisions that increase the risk of sun-related skin damage in children (more on this below)? (Update 5/25/11 – see notes below)

In part, the answer lies in the uncertainty inherent in proving anything safe.  It’s not too difficult to show that something is unlikely to be harmful, or is probably safe.  But proving something is absolutely safe under all conditions of use is simply not possible – there is always some room for doubt.  This is why decisions on health risks are typically based on plausible risk and weight of evidence – evaluating the most reasonable and defensible interpretation of the data, and not basing decisions on speculation and fantasy.

With the use of nanoparticles in sunscreens, the weight of evidence is that they are safe and effective – and may be safer and more effective than a number of non-nanoparticle alternatives as they work by coating the skin rather than being absorbed into it.  That said, it’s always prudent to check whether anything has been missed with a relatively new technology like this, and so research is ongoing just to make doubly sure that the nanoparticles currently being used stay on top of the skin, and that manufacturers are using the safest possible types of nanoparticles.

But there is another reason I suspect why the ASU have released this advice, and that is due to a study using human volunteers that was published last year.

In this study by Brian Gulson and colleagues, sunscreens were formulated with zinc oxide particles made from a stable isotope of zinc that doesn’t occur in great abundance naturally: Zn-68. Using Zn-68 as a tracer, they were able to tell whether zinc from the applied sunscreen entered the bodies of the volunteers, and ended up in their blood and urine.

The detected presence of Zn-68 in the urine and blood of volunteers was used by Friends of the Earth Australia to renew their recommendations against using nanoparticle-containing sunscreens until more is known about their safety in.  And given the ASU’s reliance on the Friends of the Earth document, it seems to have influenced their decision to recommend not using nanoparticle-containing sunscreens.

But what does the Gulson study actually conclude?  In a nutshell, the researchers showed that:

• Small amounts of zinc from sunscreens containing any form of zinc oxide particles tested found their way into the blood and urine of volunteers.
• The amounts of zinc entering the body over the five day study were miniscule – around one thousandth of the concentration of zinc already in the volunteers’ bloodstream, and around one thousandth of the amount of zinc recommended in a person’s daily diet.
• Women in the test generally showed higher uptakes of zinc than men.
• Zinc levels in blood associated with the sunscreen peaked some days after applications ended, suggesting the zinc or zinc oxide was stored somewhere in or on the body and slowly released.
• For men, zinc uptake from sunscreens was independent of particle size.  For women, zinc uptake was greater from the sunscreens containing smaller particles.

So did the particles go through the skin?  The study only showed that the zinc passed through the skin, and did not provide any evidence of particle penetration.  Two possible explanations for this are that the particles penetrated and entered the bloodstream, or that the applied particles dissolved, and that it was dissolved zinc that was penetrating into the body.

Out of the two possibilities, there is minimal evidence for particle penetration being a plausible mechanism. On the other hand, zinc oxide is sparingly soluble, and under the acid-conditions of the outer layers of the skin the particles would have readily released zinc ions.  The weight of evidence to date therefore strongly supports dissolution of the particles and subsequent dermal penetration of dissolved zinc.  This is supported by the similarity in uptake seen in men of zinc for two different sizes of zinc oxide particles.

In other words, this study provides neither compelling evidence that nanoparticles in sunscreens can pass through the skin, or that they can lead to worrying internal exposure to harmful materials.  It did indicate on the other hand that any sunscreen containing zinc oxide will lead to zinc entering the body via the skin – including sunscreens that rely on large zinc oxide particles.

And this is where it is worth returning to the Friends of the Earth recommendations.

The Friends of the Earth Safe Sunscreen Guide recommends:

Use a nano-free zinc-based SPF 30+ broad spectrum sunscreen in conjunction with protective clothing, a broad-brimmed hat, sunglasses and shade to stay sun safe.

It goes on to list sunscreens that are “nano and chemical free”, “may use nano” and “use nano” (based on information from manufacturers and assumptions from Friends of the Earth).

Passing over the fact that Friends of the Earth are advocating the use of sunscreens that demonstrate the same behavior – zinc penetration through the skin into the body – as the sunscreens they recommend people don’t use, it’s hard to understand how this document provides an authoritative and evidence-based guide for the use of sunscreens on school children – as suggested by AEU.

For a start, this is a document that is specifically concerned with nanoparticle-containing sunscreens, and is not aimed at providing advice on selecting sunscreens as a whole based on their safety and efficacy.  It is advocating a specific course of action, and is not a tool for taking informed action. And in this respect alone it is a questionable document to be distributing to school workers. But it gets worse.

The sunscreens listed in the document are listed solely with respect to their nanoparticle content.  There is no – let me repeat that no – information on how effective these sunscreens are at protecting against UVA and UVB, and what the specific safety issues associated with their use are (update 5/25/11 – see notes below).  What is more, the top tier products – those that appear to be most strongly endendorsed by Friends of the Earth – also claim to be “free of UV-absorbing chemicals”.  In other words, this is a document that appears to be endorsing the use of products that do not necessarily protect against ultraviolet light. (Update 5/25/11 – see notes below).

To be fair to Friends of the Earth – and this is not a critique of their document so much as a questioning of its use as authoritative guidance – they do recommend the use of sunscreens providing substantial UV protection that are (presumably) based on large zinc oxide particles.  But if school workers were to base their choice of what to slather onto kids on the list of products, rather than the one sentence top level recommendation, they could well be applying sunscreens that do not protect against skin damage.

And this is my greatest concern here – by advocating the use of the Friends of the Earth document, AEU could actually be endangering the health of children in the care of their members. (Update 5/25/11 – see notes below)

Of course, there are important issues to grapple with here – including how appropriate sunscreens should be selected for use on children, irrespective of the technology being used.  But surely these selections should be based on the best possible evidence that is focused on what is most appropriate for the children, and not on an action campaign by an advocacy group, no matter how well intentioned.

Update, 5/25/11:  As clarified by Georgia Miller of Friends of the Earth Australia in the comments below, the sunscreens listed in the top tier of the Friends of the Earth document are all – as far as I can tell – marketed as offering SPF 30 + protection.  This is something that I do not think is explicitly clear in the document, and the heading of “nano and chemical-free”, clarified with “products also free of UV-absorbing chemicals” raises an obvious question to the naive reader over whether these products do indeed offer significant protection.  I also continue to have serious reservations over the use of a document designed to steer people away from nanoparticle-containing sunscreens as authoritative advice on sunscreen protection for children, given it’s lack of independent testing and evaluation of all significant factors that might affect choice in a given situation.  Nevertheless, given the protection ratings of the recommended sunscreens, I have on reflection retracted the statements made in regard to the protection offered above.

A few weeks ago, the US National Nanotechnology Initiative website – www.nano.gov – underwent a much-needed facelift.  The NNI’s web portal was creaky when I was part of the Initiative several years ago now.  And it’s somewhat ironic that the world’s leading interagency initiative on one of the most prominent cutting edge technology platforms has relied on a website that is the antithesis of technology innovation for over a decade.  So I was pleasantly surprise to see the other week that the site has been updated, streamlined, and made more accessible, attractive, and – dare I say – useful.

The update has been in the works for a while now – I was one of a number of people asked about the old site and what improvements could be made well over 12 months ago.  Fortunately, despite the slow pace of progress, it looks like the changes have been worth waiting for.

Glancing around the new and improved site, the designers and NNI have done a good job.  Useful information on nanotechnology and the initiative is now far easier to find.  Information on stuff like current funding opportunities and recent reports is now clearly accessible from the home page.  It’s a cinch to find out more information about the Initiative and its member agencies.  Heck, you can even follow the NNI on Twitter now!

I particularly appreciate the new search page for NNI publications and resources.  If you are looking for specific resources from 2008 onwards, it’s easy to pull them out using the search interface.  The downside is that if you want anything before 2008, things are a little trickier – the search date fields don’t allow you to easily enter dates before January 1 2008 (although bizarrely you can search for stuff published between 2012 – 2014 – maybe time travel is a little-touted side-project of the NNI!).  Fortunately, you can enter earlier dates manually though – although you can’t see what you are typing.  Using this workaround, I managed to pull up some of the pre-2000 NNI documents, although I did notice that some of the early Interagency Working Group on Nanotechnology documents (the precursor of the NNI) were missing.

I’m not sure how much substantive new content has been added to the site with the update – although clearly there is some.  But at least in style and accessibility, the NNI now have a web portal that is commensurate with the technology it promotes.

________________________

For nano-geeks, this is what the NNI website looked like on November 12 2010:

(You can access the archive by clicking on the image, but it will take a while to load).

And this is what it looked like on April 7 2000 (the earliest archived copy I could find):

Admittedly, the 2010 version was rather slicker that the 2000 version.  The basic design that has just been superseded dates back to 2004.

Registration is now open for the 2011 Risk Science Symposium, and as I’m chairing it, I thought it worth giving a bit of a plug here.

The symposium brings together a fantastic cast of experts from very different backgrounds to explore the intersection of technology innovation and human health risk – with the aim of stimulating new thinking and ideas.

If you are grappling with emerging risk issues in industry, government, academia or the non-profit sector, this will be the place to be in September (not that I’m bias!).

A warning thought – space is limited to around 220 participants, so early registration is highly recommended.

Further details on the speakers, program and registration can be found here.

Some of the highlights include:

• An opening keynote by John Viera, Ford Motor Company Director of Sustainability Environment and Safety Engineering
• Insights from Paul Anastas, Science Advisor to the US EPA
• A UK perspective on technology innovation, risk and policy from James Wilsdon, Director of The Royal Society Science Policy Centre
• Cutting edge discussions on developments in science and technology that are pushing the boundaries of what is possible.
• Insights into emerging risk issues and innovative solutions
• A unique symposium dinner experience with designer Rodrigo Martinez from IDEO
• A chance to interact with some of the leading cross-disciplinary thought leaders on addressing emerging risk challenges.

Draft Program

Confirmed Speakers

Registration

Tomorrow, I will be speaking at the Marshal M. Weinberg Seminar on Optogenetic Manipulation of the Brain at the University of Michigan – not a subject I must admit that I am that familiar with.  Fortunately, there are other speakers who will be doing much of the heavy-lifting, including Karl Deisseroth – a leading optogenetics researcher, and author of a recent in-depth article in Scientific American on controlling the brain with light.  My role – I suspect – is to bring a broader social and technological perspective to the benefits and risks of this rapidly emerging field as part of the closing panel discussion – neatly titled “Mind Control: What do you think?”

Here, I must confess that I’m going to be relying an awful lot on the preceding talks to round off my education in optogenetics before I launch in.  But I have been doing some preparatory work on optogenetics, and in particular the plausibility of its possible use in manipulating brain function at a sophisticated level.

By way of background, optogenetics is a relatively young field that revolves around the study and use of specific genetic sequences – opsins – to enable the modulation of cellular and sub-cellular processes in the presence of light.  Its roots stem back to early research into optically-modulated biological processes in microorganisms.  But it wasn’t until a number of fields began to converge that the possibility of utilizing these seemingly esoteric processes began to emerge.

For decades now, it has been known that some microorganisms have the ability to respond to light by producing  proteins that switch or otherwise modify specific cellular processes. This might have remained a curiosity if it wasn’t for the increasing ability to cut and paste functional genetic sequences from one species to another, and the realization that to control many cell-level biological processes, fast, precisely timed pulses of light could provide a control mechanism that overcomes the limitations of electrical and chemical alternatives.  The result has been the emergence of optogenetics as a well-defined field – in Deisseroth’s words

“the use of optics and genetics to control well-defined events within specific cells of living tissue”.

Optogenetics includes the discovery and insertion into cells of genes that enable them to respond in specific ways to light… It also includes the technologies that enable the delivery of  light deep within complex organisms to control light-sensitive processes at the cellular level, and technologies for monitoring and assessing the results of this optical control.

One of the more high profile application areas of optogenetics is in understanding the brain and intervening in neural processes.  Deisseroth again:

What excites neuroscientists about optogenetics is control over defined events within defined cell types at defined times—a level of precision that is most likely crucial to biological understanding even beyond neuroscience. The significance of any event in a cell has full meaning only in the context of the other events occurring around it in the rest of the tissue, the whole organism or even the larger environment. Even a shift of a few milliseconds in the timing of a neuron’s firing, for example, can sometimes completely reverse the effect of its signal on the rest of the nervous system. And millisecond-scale timing precision within behaving mammals has been essential for key insights into both normal brain function and into clinical problems such as parkinsonism.

The possibilities here are tremendously exciting.  But they also raise whole rafts of questions over the dangers and ethics of meddling with the brain – and by extension the mind.  What are the possibilities of dual-use technologies that can lead to questionable as well as acceptable control?  Could optogenetic “mind control” lead to significantly altered personalities – and if so, who is responsible for the results?  Might optogeneticically modulated individuals be “hacked” – enabling third parties to gain control over their decisions and actions?  And what are the ethical boundaries to developing and using technologies that depend on genetic, physiological and psychological manipulation of subjects?

These are all questions that are ripe for serious discussion.  But to be productive, they must also be grounded in scientific and technological plausibility.  It’s easy to imagine what might be achieved by optogenetics through extrapolation and speculation.  But given realistic scientific and technological constraints, what is is plausibly likely to be achieved?

Reading up on the state of the science as it stands now, it seems that concerns over the nefarious use of optogenetics for sophisticated mind control are probably premature.  The brain is a hugely complex organ, and sophisticated as current technologies seem, we are still a long way from being able to understand, control and manipulate it with any real dexterity.  In fact, worrying too much about mind control at this point is probably the equivalent to jumping straight from using crude saws to amputate damaged limbs to worrying about the implications to advanced brain surgery.  Nevertheless, in preparation for tomorrow’s panel discussion, I though it worthwhile spending some time thinking about the technologies that could potentially bring sophisticated mind control closer to being a reality.

Over the next decade or so, getting new genetic sequences into neurons will probably be less of a challenge than getting short, precisely-timed pulses of light to neurons deep within the brain.  We already have a number of technology platforms that are actively being explored on this front.  On the other hand, the ability to channel pulses of light to small and highly localized volumes deep within the brain still presents huge challenges.  So what are the options here, and where might the technology develop?

Advances in fiber-optic probes are beginning to open up deep brain optical stimulation, and offer the possibility of stimulating relatively small volumes on demand.  But the spatial resolution achievable is still coarse, and will probably remain so as there is a limit to how many probes can be inserted into a brain.  This technology may well prove suitable for modulating brain function in very basic ways – possibly to a sufficient degree to aid patients with conditions such as Parkinson’s disease.  But insertion of fiber-optic probes lacks the finesse required for sophisticated manipulation.  And of course, there is the hassle of both inserting the probes, and having them present as a permanent fixture for as long as the stimulation is required.

High density and highly localized probes that are hard wired to the external world ideally requires a dense network of probes that are organically “grown” through the brain – a technology I am sure will remain in the realms of science fiction for my lifetime at least.  If such a technology could be developed, it would enable high spatial resolution optical stimulation, opening up the possibility of fine-tuning optogenetic control to small clusters of neurons.  But while nanoscale regenerative medicine is making interesting breakthroughs in self-assembling biocompatible structures, it is hard to imagine these translating into useable optogenetic neural nets any time soon.

There is another possible route to high resolution and highly localized stimulation though, which isn’t too dissimilar to the sci-fi concept of a optogenetic neural net.  Imagine that you could place the equivalent of millions of fiber optic probe tips through the brain, and then communicate with them wirelesly – you would have the equibalent of the neural net, without the net part.

Fanciful as it may sound, it’s and approach that has already been used to develop cellular and sub-cellular probes.  PEBBLE technology – Photonic Explorer for Biomedical use with Biologically Localized Embedding technology – has been under development for some years for tracking biological processes in situ.  Could a similar technology be used for wireless neurogenetic control?

Imagine a biologically benign nanoparticle that could be stimulated to emit light of a given wavelength in the presence of a specific electromagnetic field.  If these particles could be diffused throughout the brain, local stimulation might be possible by using focused electromagnetic fields.  Wireless optogenetic control.

Of course, there are tremendous technical barriers here – not least engineering particles that are able to pick up and respond to specific signals.  But our ability to engineer nanomaterials to exhibit non-liner interactions with electromagnetic fields and to exploit these interactions may help us to overcome overcome this particular barrier.  Even then though, there is the challenge of focusing these fields to within precise volumes within the brain in order to elicit the desired effect.

Plausible I suspect, but extremely time consuming and cumbersome.

But what if the nanoparticles could be programmed to respond to specific stimuli once in place?  Imagine a sophisticated nanoparticle that, in the presence of a high intensity electromagnetic field, can be programmed to respond to a specific lower intensity field by emitting light of a given wavelength.  A subject’s brain could be infused with the nanoparticles, and particles within specific regions of the brain subsequently programmed to respond to stimuli that might be distinguished in terms of their frequency, intensity or time/phase modulation.  All that would then be needed to “control the mind” of the subject would be to subject them to electromagnetic fields with the appropriate characteristics – and this is the important part – without needing a high level of spatial resolution.

In effect, once programmed, a simple wide-field transmitter could be used to send signals to very specific parts of the subject’s brain.  And if the responses weren’t quite what was wanted, there is no reason why the nanoparticles couldn’t be reset, ready for the next round of programming. In other words, you would have the neural equivalent of an old-style computer EPROM (Erasable Programmable Read Only Memory) – an Erasable Programmable Nanoparticle Optogenetic Control device, or EPNOC!

Plausible?

Borderline most likely I suspect.  But not beyond the realms of possibility.

Delivery of spatially dense and highly localized pulses of light is key to optogenetics being used for sophisticated mind control.  If we cannot achieve it, the technique is likely to remain a blunt – albeit still very valuable – instrument.  But if technology platforms such as nanotechnology do begin to converge more fully with optogenetics, we may see some interesting, possibly startling and undoubtedly challenging advances over the coming decades.

Maybe not mind control, but certainly more brain manipulation than has ever before been in our grasp.

Cross-posted from The Risk Science Blog:

Back in 2007 the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) issued a set of “Principles for Nanotechnology Environmental, Health and Safety Oversight” (no longer available on the OSTP website it seems, but you can read them in this Nanowerk article). At the time, I was less than enamored with the “don’t mess with business” tone of the principles. So I was particularly interested to read what the White House Emerging Technologies Interagency Policy Coordination Committee (ETIPC) had to say on a very similar issue last month.

ETIPC was formed last year, and consists of assistant secretary-level representation from about twenty federal agencies. From the White House blog, the group is

…part of an effort to give special attention to technologies so new—such as nanotechnology and synthetic biology—that their policy implications are still being gauged. Created jointly by OSTP, the Office of Management and Budget’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA), and the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR), the ETIPC consists of assistant secretary-level representatives from about 20 Federal agencies.

The same post goes on to explain that

Emerging technologies promise to have significant scientific, economic, and perhaps societal impacts because of their potential to revolutionize fields as varied as materials science, electronics, medicine, communications, agriculture, and energy. Rapid scientific and technological advances in these fields are resulting in a variety of new products and processes with unique and transformational characteristics. But full realization of the economic and public benefits of these applications will require open consideration of policy questions with the full range of stakeholders, including governments, industry, non-governmental organizations, academia, and the public.

The first publicly released outcomes of ETIPC were released last month. On March 11 2011, John Holdren (Director of OSTP and Assistant to the President for Science and Technology), Cass Sunstein (Administrator, Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, Office of Management and Budget) and Islam Siddiqui (Chief Agricultural Negotiator, United States Trade Representative) issued a joint memorandum on Principles for Regulation and Oversight of Emerging Technologies, developed by ETIPC.

These are consistent with the President’s Executive Order 13563 (issued on January 18 2011) on Improving Regulation and Regulatory Review. They also include much of the same language of the 2007 principles. But the tone and emphasis are markedly different.

The memorandum starts by noting that

Innovation with respect to emerging technologies — such as nanotechnology, synthetic biology, and genetic engineering, among others — requires not only coordinated research and development but also appropriate and balanced oversight.

It then frames the issues at stake by stating:

We share a fundamental desire for regulation and oversight that ensure the fulfillment of legitimate objectives such as the protection of safety, health, and the environment. Regulation and oversight should avoid unjustifiably inhibiting innovation, stigmatizing new technologies, or creating trade barriers.

This is in stark contrast to the 2007 principles, which have a much stronger primary focus on not intrfereing with business and innovation.

The principles follow up this focus on safety, health and the environment with an emphasis on science-based decision-making, public participation, and flexibility. These reflect emerging thinking on the challenges and opportunities presented by emerging technologies, and appear to offer a firm foundation for moving forward.

However, reading the principles (which are included below) I do have a couple of concerns.

The first is that these principles are extremely general. While establishing laudable objectives such as basing regulation on scientific evidence, engaging stakeholders in the process of developing regulation, balancing the costs and benefits of regulations and ensuring regulatory flexibility, they lack the details which would transform them from a set of nice ideas to something that has impact. This is understandable in a document of this type, but it would be good to see a move toward actionable recommendations coming out of this group.

I’m also concerned that some of the principles hint at less than innovative thinking to address the safe and sustainable development of technology innovation. For instance, while the emphasis on public participation is welcome, the principles are written in terms of modes of public consultation that rarely allow engagement with and input from citizens as opposed to mobilized interest groups. Rather than supporting the idea that posting details of public meetings and consultation periods in the Federal Register constitutes public participation, (it doesn’t), it would be good to see some innovative thinking on what true engagement means in terms of developing effective regulations for emerging technologies.

I am also unsure what “Risk assessment should be distinguished from risk management” means – especially when risk experts are beginning to explore more integrative approaches to risk assessment and management as a way of addressing complex and emerging issues.

But these concerns aside, there is a lot to applaud here. In particular, the combination of science-driven, participatory and flexible approaches to emerging technologies regulation should lay the groundwork for approaches to oversight that both protect people and the environment, and support technology innovation.

It is also worth noting that the principles align closely with the University of Michigan Risk Science Center’s vision of evidence-informed and socially-responsive action on human health risks. And they set the scene rather well for this September’s Risk Science Symposium on Risk, Uncertainty and Sustainable Innovation.

So although there is still a long way to go before technology innovation is accompanied by innovations in governance that will support rather than hinder its safe and sustainable development, these principles are an important step toward the federal government coordinating approaches to ensuring emerging technologies and emergent risks are regulated effectively.

From the memorandum:

…the following principles, consistent with Executive Order 13563 and discussed and approved by the ETIPC, should be respected to the extent permitted by law:

• Scientific Integrity: Federal regulation and oversight of emerging technologies should be based on the best available scientific evidence. Adequate information should be sought and developed, and new knowledge should be taken into account when it becomes available. To the extent feasible, purely scientific judgments should be separated from judgments of policy.
• Public Participation: To the extent feasible and subject to valid constraints (involving, for example, national security and confidential business information), relevant information should be developed with ample opportunities for stakeholder involvement and public participation. Public participation is important for promoting accountability, for improving decisions, for increasing trust, and for ensuring that officials have access to widely dispersed information.
• Communication: The Federal Government should actively communicate information to the public regarding the potential benefits and risks associated with new technologies.
• Benefits and costs: Federal regulation and oversight of emerging technologies should be based on an awareness of the potential benefits and the potential costs of such regulation and oversight, including recognition of the role of limited information and risk in decision making.
• Flexibility: To the extent practicable, Federal regulation and oversight should provide sufficient flexibility to accommodate new evidence and learning and to take into account the evolving nature of information related to emerging technologies and their applications.
• Risk Assessment and Risk Management: Risk assessment should be distinguished from risk management. The Federal Government should strive to reach an appropriate level of consistency in risk assessment and risk management across various agencies and offices and across various technologies. Federally mandated risk management actions should be appropriate to, and commensurate with, the degree of risk identified in an assessment.
• Coordination: Federal agencies should seek to coordinate with one another, with state authorities, and with stakeholders to address the breadth of issues, including health and safety, economic, environmental, and ethical issues (where applicable) associated with the commercialization of an emerging technology, in an effort to craft a coherent approach. There should be a clear recognition of the statutory limitations of each Federal and state agency and an effort to defer to appropriate entities when attempting to address the breadth of issues.
• International Cooperation: The Federal Government should encourage coordinated and collaborative research across the international community. It should clearly communicate the regulatory approaches and understanding of the United States to other nations. It should promote informed choices and both sharing and development of relevant data, particularly with respect to the benefits and costs of regulation and oversight. The Federal Government should participate in the development of international standards, consistent with U.S. law and guidance (e.g., the National Technology Transfer and Advancement Act and OMB Circular A-119). When appropriate, international approaches should be coordinated as far in advance as possible, to help ensure that such approaches are consistent with these principles.
• Regulation: The Federal Government should adhere to Executive Order 13563 and, consistent with that Executive Order, the following principles, to the extent permitted by law, when regulating emerging technologies:
  • Decisions should be based on the best reasonably obtainable scientific, technical, economic, and other information, within the boundaries of the authorities and mandates of each agency;
  • Regulations should be developed with a firm commitment to fair notice and to public participation;
  • The benefits of regulation should justify the costs (to the extent permitted by law and recognizing the relevance of uncertainty and the limits of quantification and monetary equivalents);
  • Where possible, regulatory approaches should promote innovation while also advancing regulatory objectives, such as protection of health, the environment, and safety;
  • When no significant oversight issue based on a sufficiently distinguishing attribute of the technology or the relevant application can be identified, agencies should consider the option not to regulate;
  • Where possible, regulatory approaches should be performance-based and provide predictability and flexibility in the face of fresh evidence and evolving information; and
  • Regulatory approaches shall comply with established requirements and guidance such as the following:
    • Executive Order 13563 – Improving Regulation and Regulatory Review. Federal Register, Vol. 76, No. 14, Friday, January 21, 2011, 3821-3823, available at http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2011-01-21/pdf/2011-1385.pdf;
    • Executive Order 12866 – Regulatory Planning and Review. Federal Register Vol. 58, No. 190, Monday, October 4, 1993, 51735-51744, available at http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/inforeg/eo12866.pdf;
    • Information Quality Act (Sec. 515 of the Treasury and General Government Appropriations Act for FY 2001, Pub. L. No. 106-554); Information Quality Guidelines: OMB (2002) Guidelines for Ensuring and Maximizing the Quality, Objectivity, Utility, and Integrity of Information Disseminated by Federal Agencies (2002), 67 Fed. Reg. 8452 (Feb. 22, 2002), available at http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/fedreg/reproducible2.pdf;
    • National Technology Transfer and Advancement Act of 1995 (“NTTAA”). Public Law 104-113, available at http://standards.gov/standards_gov/nttaa.cfm;
    • Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Circular A-119, Transmittal Memorandum, Federal Participation in the Development and Use of Voluntary Standards (02/10/1998), available at http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/circulars/a119/a119.html;
    • OMB Final Information Quality Bulletin for Peer Review (December 16, 2004), available at http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/memoranda/fy2005/m05-03.pdf;
    • OMB Bulletin No. 07-02 (M-07-07), Issuance of OMB’s “Final Bulletin for Agency Good Guidance Practices” (January 18,2007), available at http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/memoranda/fy2007/m07-07.pdf;
    • OMB/OSTP Memorandum: M-07-24, Updated Principles for Risk Analysis (September 19, 2007), available at http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/memoranda/fy2007/m07-24.pdf;
    • The Trade Agreements Act of 1979, as amended (Pub.L. 96-39, 93 Stat.
      144, enacted July 26, 1979, codified at 19 U.S.C. ch.13 (19 U.S.C. §
      2501-2581);
    • A Strategy for American Innovation: Driving Towards Sustainable
      Growth and Quality Jobs” (September 2009), available at: http://www.whitehouse.gov/assets/documents/SEPT_20_Innovation_Whitepaper_FINAL.pdf; and
    • Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, Disclosure and Information As Regulatory Tools (June 18, 2010), available at http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/assets/inforeg/disclosure_principles.pdf

I‘ve just posted a piece over on the Risk Science Blog on regulatory definitions of engineered nanomaterials.  What may come as a surprise to many readers given my comments over the years is the title – “Why we don’t need a regulatory definition for nanomaterials”!  Have I flipped, lost my senses, or what?

As you might guess, I still think that engineered nanomaterials present a huge regulatory challenge – both from the perspective of avoiding unnecessary health impacts, and providing manufacturers with clear, rational rules for their safe use.  But I also have this odd idea that regulations should at the minimum be built on evidence if the resulting rules and guidelines are to have any relevance and traction.

Sadly, it now looks like we are heading toward a situation where the definitions of nanomaterials underpinning regulations will themselves be based on policy, not science.

This scares the life out of me, because it ends up taking evidence off the table when it comes to oversight, and replacing it with assumptions and speculation on what people think is relevant, rather than what actually is – not good for safety, and certainly not good for business.

But you can read more about why I’m getting worried about a regulatory definition for nanomaterials over at the Risk Science Blog.

Cross-posted from the Risk Science Blog

[Transcript]

I’ve occasionally been accused of thinking big when it comes to Risk Science. So I was rather chuffed to hear former Executive Director of Google.org Larry Brilliant out-big me on every point as he delivered the 10th Peter M. Wege lecture here at the University of Michigan a couple of weeks ago.

Larry was talking about sustainable humanity, and the need to actively work toward a global society that overcomes problems (some old, some emerging) and continues to get better. But threaded through the lecture was the theme of risk, and the urgent need we face to become more educated and informed on the risks that humanity faces, and how together we can overcome them.

Many of the themes that emerged are near and dear to my heart, and are reflected in the Risk Science Center’s vision – enabling evidence-based and socially-responsive action on human health risks in a rapidly changing world. In fact, the lecture and Larry’s following answers to questions were so relevant to the Center that I felt like saying – next time someone asked what we were about – to simply say “what he said!”

Much of this was encapsulated in the following response to a question from Larry following the lecture:

We need a whole new generation of leaders, leaders who are cross-trained in governance, who understand risk literacy, who can communicate complex problems in simple ways, who truly believe in democracy, and who are willing to engage with their constituents in a way that ups the conversation. So people know what the hell they’re voting for. And what the consequences and the risks that they’re taking on. We’ve reached the stage where the public is being used as if it were the ultimate re-insurer. What happens when a nuclear power plant us built on an earthquake fault and things go bad? It’s paid for by the tax payers in ways that we haven’t contemplated. Who has done the risk cost benefit analysis of continuing to use fossil fuels? So these are not things that we normally train students with. It’s a shame but I think that the three “r’s” of reading, writing and arithmetic must have a fourth “r” added: risk; as we understand the ever-more risky world that we have inherited and the complex interrelated-ness of the factors that lead to it.

Of course, enabling sustainable humanity is about far more than risk. But, as Larry so eloquently indicated, we neglect developing a deep and sophisticated understanding of risk and how we should be responding to it at our peril.

The transcript of Larry Brilliant’s lecture can be read here, and the lecture and Q&A session can be listened to below:

[Track 1: Introductions. Track 2: lecture. Track 3: Q&A]

Dr. Larry Brilliant is Dr. Larry Brilliant is president of the Skoll Global Threats Fund, and a University of Michigan School of Public health alumnus.

The videos of the lecture and the following question and answer session can be watched here.

As anyone who has followed my work over the past few years will know, I have a deep interest in the potential benefits and risks associated with emerging technologies, and in particular whether we can swing the balance towards benefits by thinking more innovatively about risk and how we address it. So it’s not surprising that I’m extremely excited to be chairing this year’s Risk Science Symposium at the University of Michigan, which is all about how we can think differently about human health risk to support sustainable technology innovation.

The symposium is shaping up to be a unique event, and one that I hope will expose participants to new ideas as well as energizing them to explore new possibilities as they work toward developing responsible and sustainable products based on technology innovations.

Over the next few weeks, we’ll be firming up the program in time for early registration, opening on April 4.

Something I’m particularly excited about is that the symposium is turning out to be a great opportunity to explore some different formats for getting people to think differently about common challenges. Rather than use the tried and tested – but often bum-numbingly boring – “talking heads” lecture format, we will be basing most of the proceedings on a series of moderated discussions. These will be designed to engage experts from different perspectives – as well as other participants – in addressing key questions, under the guiding hand of a strong moderator.

It’s a format that one colleague described as “symposium speed-dating” – but I think it’s one that will encourage new ideas and insights, and lead to some extremely engaging exchanges. And in case you think that these will go the way of many panel discussions where participants simply use their time (and that of their fellow-speakers often) as a soap box for their own ideas, think again. We’ll be working hard to ensure that this doesn’t happen. Rather, the panels will be similar to those in the Risk Science Center Unplugged series of discussions – experts from different perspectives engaged in candid, animated yet carefully directed conversation.

And what about the the content?

Day one will lay the groundwork of why technology innovation is important, explore critical areas of technology innovation that are closely intertwined with questions over human health impacts, and begin to unpack why we need to think differently about risk and how we handle it if these technologies are to succeed.

Day two goes on to considering more closely the challenges of taking an integrative approach to addressing potential human health risks associated with technology innovation, and how new thinking on risk can increase the long-term success of technology innovation.

And in between the two days, we have what is shaping up to be a rather unique and definitely no-to-be-missed dinner event. But more on that another time.

Involved in the symposium will be leading experts from industry, government, academia, civil society, the media and other groups – all challenging and inspiring each other and the symposium participants to take a new look at how thinking differently about risk can support sustainable technology innovation.

Over the next few weeks, I’ll be posting a series of blogs on the symposium. But in the meantime, you can check out the details on the symposium website, and follow progress on the Risk Science Center Facebook page.

And remember, early registration for the symposium opens April 4 – but be forewarned, space is limited.

Cross-posted from the Risk Science Blog

Back in December 2009, I rode the Acela Express up to New York from Washington DC for the day to record one of a series of nanotechnology podcasts for the ASME – the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. The podcast was to be part of a new educational outreach initiative on all aspects of nanotechnology developed by the society.

That podcast – which deals with environmental, health and safety aspects of nanotechnology – has now been published. Together with a continuing series of nanotech audio and video podcasts, it can be seen on ASME’s Nanotechnology Institute website. You’ll have to register to watch and download the podcasts – but registration is free.

However, the good folk at ASME have also allowed me to post the podcast here:

A product of 4 grueling hours of filming (for four minutes of footage!!), I thought the editing and production team did a great job of pulling something coherent, informative and engaging together.  It should be obvious by the way where the real talent lay here by comparing the length of the filming session to the length of the final video!

If you find this interesting, you should check out other podcasts in the series, which currently cover energy, materials, the life sciences, and environment, health and safety.

ps – there is one juxtaposition of images in the podcast that I thought was rather strange – brownie points to anyone who can spot it!

I don’t believe it – once again I’ve let myself be talked into doing an event in Second Life.  But this time it’s even worse – I’ll be hosting a combined second life and real-life event, and in effect acting as the medium between physical and virtual realities.

The only compensation is that the subject is a really juicy one – the Seven Deadly Sins!

On March 8 – Fat Tuesday appropriately – I’ll be indulging myself talking about the Seven Deadly Sins of Techno-Complacency to a combined audience in Second Life, and in real life, here at the University of Michigan.  And just to ice the cake so to speak, it looks like we’ll be webcasting the event as well.

If you want to indulge as well, the event is from 2:00 – 3:00 PM Eastern Time on March 8 – 1655 SPH Crossroads if you are in town, or Second Life if you are not (I’ll post the webcast link later). But be warned – only the real-life crowd will be getting Deadly Sin Cupcakes (seriously)!

The blurb for the event – which as you might imagine is not going to be that straight laced – goes something like this:

Science and technology are transforming our world faster than ever before.  Yet for all our technological brilliance, are we really in control of our destiny?  Do we have the wherewithal to steer a course between a future techno-heaven and techno-hell? Or are we so caught up in our technological infatuation that we have become insensitive to the future consequences of our actions?

Inspired by the “Seven Deadly Sins” of the ancient world, Andrew Maynard takes a wry look at the challenges of using science and technology to build a sustainable future – while avoiding the “fiery pit” of techno-failure.  Among his seven deadly sins of a techno-complacent society: Sucker Syndrome, soppy thinking, and blind faith.”

If you’re interested, there’s more information available at http://slum.wetpaint.com/

And the seven sins?  They are:

1. Widget Envy. (Envy)
2. Sucker-syndrome. (Gluttony)
3. Soppy thinking. (Greed)
4. Megalomania. (Lust)
5. Techno-hubris. (Pride)
6. Blind faith. (Sloth)
7. Intolerance. (Wrath)

PS – the version of my bio being used for the event should be taken with a pinch of salt – a pinch of sinful hubris possibly crept in there somewhere in the spirit of things!

The recently published International Handbook on Regulating Nanotechnologies has a rather unconventional cover image. But it’s one that I must confess I am rather pleased with.

The image is a photo of a piece of Murano glass that I picked up several years ago while visiting Venice. At the time I was participating in a nanotoxicology conference, and so was sensitized to all things nano. Taking some time out to wander round the glass showrooms of Murano, I was struck by the deep red glass that a number of the pieces were showcasing. The coloring comes from the glass being infused with gold nanoparticles – a technique that dates back to medieval times, but is especially associated with the artisans of Murano. Given the nanoparticle connection, I picked up this particularly eye-catching piece, thinking that it might come in useful some day.

The original inspiration for the book cover

Fast forward a few years to the final stages of pulling the International Handbook on Regulating Nanotechnologies together. As we neared completing the book, my co-editors Graeme Hodge and Di Bowman and I were looking for an arresting image for the book’s cover. At the time, my daughter was taking a photography class at school, and had just taken an abstract image of my Murano glass piece. As a photo, it worked rather well, and got me thinking about whether I could finally use the piece for something nanotech-related.

Examining the piece more closely, it struck me that there was scope here for a rather sophisticated image that illustrated the challenges of regulating nanotechnologies on multiple levels. On one level, the piece used gold nanoparticles to achieve a specific effect. On a more abstract level, the nanoparticles were used to illustrate an ordered array of circular objects – a little reminiscent of an ordered array of nanoparticles. Then, these objects were multi-layered – hinting at the sophistication that can now be achieved in engineering nanometer scale structures with multiple components.

So the piece took on the role of an elegant and sophisticated metaphor for nanotechnology, that incorporated the technology within the metaphor itself.

But what persuaded me that this might be an image that would work on the front of a book about regulation was an intriguing question that the piece raised. Even though the technology used to color the glass uses nanoparticles, the technology could hardly be termed nanotechnology when it was initially developed – simply because the artisans had no idea that the effect they were achieving was due to these small, uniform particles in the glass. But now we know that this is the cause of the effect. And artisans continue to utilize the technology with the full knowledge that it is associated with uniformly sized nanometer diameter particles of gold infused through the glass. Does this conscious understanding and use make it nanotechnology? And does that mean that we need to ask new questions about how the technology is regulated – even though it’s been around for thousands of years?

These are some of the overarching questions that we and our co-authors were grappling with in the book. So it made perfect sense to use the image as a metaphor for the the challenges we face in regulating nanotechnologies – or even formulating the questions we need to address.

And, as it turns out, it doesn’t look half bad!

From the book cover:

An abstract image realized in contemporary glass, from the Venetian island of Murano. The deep red coloring results from the glass being infused with gold nanoparticles, a technique used by artisans lung long before it was realized that the effect was due to the size of the gold particles suspended within the glass. The regular array of concentric geometric shapes is an apt metaphor for the complexity of engineered nanomaterials, where useful attributes arise from controlling how matter is structured from the nanoscale up to the scale of everyday objects. But it also poses an intriguing question in the context of regulation: now that the artisans know the glass gets its unique properties from nanometer-scale gold particles – and can presumably better control it as a result – is it nanotechnology?

Cross-posted from the Risk Science Blog

]]> http://2020science.org/2011/02/26/the-art-of-regulating-nanotechnologies/feed/ 3 http://2020science.org/2011/02/23/crowdsourcing-sinful-images-for-a-tech-talk-can-you-help/ http://2020science.org/2011/02/23/crowdsourcing-sinful-images-for-a-tech-talk-can-you-help/#comments Wed, 23 Feb 2011 15:51:51 +0000 Andrew Maynard http://2020science.org/?p=4103

How would you illustrate the “Seven Deadly Sins of Techno-Complacency” (see below)? On March 8, I’m giving a combined Second Live/Real Life talk on emerging technologies, inspired by the Seven Deadly Sins.  This will be a rather tongue in cheek affair as you might imagine, but with some serious points embedded in it somewhere.

My Seven Deadly Sins (or rather, those I will be talking about) are outlined below.  Given a bit of a time-crunch here, I’m desperately looking for images/graphics to illustrate each sin – and I’d love any thoughts you have on what might work.

Please post your ideas – including links – in the comments space below, following some basic guidelines:

• Photos, paintings, abstract images, real life – the more creative the better!
• Please don’t post anything that could be considered offensive though – I’ll be deleting any comments that I think cross the line.
• For the presentation, I’ll probably select one image per sin to use as a backdrop.

I’ll post further details of the event as soon as I have them.

Thanks!

My Seven Deadly Sins of Techno-Complacency:

Widget Envy. (Envy). As technology gets more sophisticated, we constantly hanker after the next upgrade or widget.  But is this widget-envy leading to a better world, or just a different world? Or is it even eroding away our ability to make informed decisions?

Sucker-syndrome. (Gluttony). Are manufacturers playing into the “sin of widget-envy” by exploiting our desires?  Are we becoming complacent suckers to tech-savvy marketing machines?

Soppy thinking. (Greed). Is the Some One else’s Problem mindset (SOPpy thinking) leading to rampant overuse and mis-use of resources, with the assumption that someone else will deal with the consequences?

Megalomania. (Lust). New technologies come with new powers – not only military might, but also the ability to impact societies and the environment on a global scale.  What’s to stop small groups and individuals misusing high-impact technologies to force their own agenda on others?

Techno-hubris. (Pride). We think that science and technology can solve every problem.  But you know what they say comes before a fall…

Blind faith. (Sloth). On the other hand, how many people are happy to sit back and let the nerds and geeks get on with things – assuming that everything will work out just fine?  Will they make the world a better place on our behalf? And if they don’t, who’s fault is it?

Intolerance. (Wrath). Where does intolerance for those that don’t “get” science and technology “like we do” lead?  Is this a sin clothed in righteous anger?

In one of the more bizarre yet less publicized proposed cuts in the 2012 Obama budget, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health Education and Research Centers are on the chopping block.  Bizarre, because the move is directly counter to Obama’s push on innovation and education as drivers of economic growth.

The Education and Research Centers (ERCs, previously called Educational Resource Centers) were originally established in the mid-1970′s, in direct response to the 1970 Occupational Safety and Health Act mandate to

“conduct, directly or by grants and contracts, education programs to provide an adequate supply of qualified personnel to carry out the purposes of this Act”

The aim was to support academic institutions in developing interdisciplinary occupational health and safety training programs that ensured health and safety professionals had the best possible training.

There are currently 17 ERCs in the US, each of them equipping occupational health professionals with a unique skill-set to support safe and effective business practices.  In the academic year 2009-2010, there were 689 graduate students enrolled in ERCs, of which, 423 (61%) were supported by NIOSH.  Over the same period 287 graduated from ERC training programs. Of those, 234 (82%) entered occupational safety and health careers or more advanced occupational safety and health training.

Without a doubt, this $24 million per year program hits way above its weight in ensuring US businesses remain competitive and sustainable.  And it does this by leveraging other resources, and by ensuring businesses do not making costly and unnecessary mistakes when it comes to health and safety.

But more than this, the ERCs have an essential role in ensuring US health and safety professionals are up to speed on the latest knowledge and tools for ensuring safe and effective work practices in an increasingly complex world.

Let’s face it – we’re no longer living in the 1900′s, where businesses could gamble on worker safety (and sometimes get away with it in the short term) and many safe working practices were grounded in common sense.  Today’s successful modern business demands highly skilled personnel to ensure safety contributes to success, and to ensure that enterprises don’t fail because someone was foolish enough to think safety doesn’t matter.

And no-where is this more apparent than at the cutting edge of technology innovation.

Technology innovation is critical to the US economy.  Yet if we’ve learned anything in recent times, it’s that if cutting edge innovation is to lead to jobs and economic growth, it has to be accompanied by cutting edge approaches to ensuring its safe development and use.  Technologies such as nanotechnology have taught us that new technologies demand new approaches to safe and responsible development.  This is a lesson that emerging technologies such as synthetic biology are re-enforcing.  And in today’s globalized world, corporations are increasingly realizing that sustainable development requires new value-sets and understanding that integrate safety into design and development in sophisticated ways.

And where is the expertise going to come from to achieve this?  The ERCs. Apart from the fact that they won’t be there in 18 months time if the proposed cuts are approved.

I can just see US competitors rubbing their hands in glee as they see the country’s shortsightedness eroding the foundations of its innovation strategy.

Of course, the ERCs aren’t the only source of occupational safety knowledge.  And as they stand, they will still need to develop and adapt to address emerging workplace safety needs.  But they are without a doubt a critical part of the US’s complex business and innovation structure, and their removal will have long-reaching repercussions to US innovation and competitiveness.

What is worse, it appears that the thinking behind their removal is more than a little sloppy.  The Pump Handle has already questioned the justification for killing the program.  And over on the Risk Science Blog there is a detailed rebuttal of poorly researched justifications made in the budget.

Which leaves the question – why cut a $24 million program that has proven its worth, and is probably more important to US growth and development now than at any time previously – especially where such a cut will be extremely costly to reverse once made?

It’s a question that I, and probably many others involved with making technology innovation work for Americans, are still trying to understand.

Here’s an offer I’m sure you won’t be able to resist: The opportunity to read the first and last chapters of the just-published International Handbook on Regulating Nanotechnologies – for free!

Due to the farsightedness of my co-editors, the publishers have agreed to let authors post their chapters on their institutional web pages.

So if you head over to the Risk Science Blog, you can download the chapter that frames the book, and the one that pulls everything together at the end.

Don’t all rush at once!

I have to add, this was a master-stroke by Di Bowman in her negotiations with Edward Elgar Publishing- kudos to her!

Cross-posted from The Risk Science Blog

Several months ago, I was asked by a colleague if I fancied co-authoring a review on nanotoxicology for a copy of Toxicological Sciences celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Society of Toxicology (coming out later this year).

Fool that I am, I agreed.  Interestingly though, as I and my co-authors (Martin Philbert and David Warheit) grappled with a topic we were all, to be frank getting a little fatigued with, it became clear that “nanotoxicology” as it is currently understood is merely a step towards a much bigger field of the “new toxicology of sophisticated materials”

The review is currently available here as an Advance Access publication from Toxicological Sciences.  In it we start by reviewing the history of the emergence of nanotoxicology as an integral part of the field of nanotechnology, and continue to examine some of the key toxicology-based challenges presented by engineered nanomaterials.

Yet we conclude that, despite the current flurry of activity in researching the toxicity of nanomaterials, the field of nanotoxicology is suffering from something of an identity crisis:

“There is a strong sense that emerging, novel and complex materials that have been engineered at the nanoscale may exhibit unusual or unanticipated toxicity from a conventional perspective, and that research is needed to understand and address how these designed-materials might cause harm in ways that are not readily understood at present. This concern is supported by a growing body of research which indicates that some nanometer scale materials do demonstrate biological behavior that is mediated by physical form as well as chemical composition. Yet a clear identification and formulation of the problems being faced remain elusive.

For example, what is meant by the “nanoscale” is far from clear, meaning that there is considerable ambiguity over which materials are embraced by “nanotoxicology.” Widely accepted definitions of nanotechnology refer to a size range of approximately 1 – 100 nm “where unique phenomena enable novel applications”. Yet these are largely definitions of convenience, not of science. And while the definitions defining the field of nanotechnology have been important in driving new science and technology   innovation, it is not clear how they apply to a new material’s propensity to cause harm in unexpected ways.”

This is not to say that the questions and issues raised by nanotoxicology are not important.  On the contrary, we note that

“there is an array of increasingly sophisticated materials that are emerging from advances in science, technology and engineering that do demand careful consideration of the new risks they might pose.”

But we suggest that new thinking on how the potential safety challenges presented by these “sophisticated materials” is needed.

“In this respect a differential approach to toxicology studies is required – one which helps identify where emerging materials and products deviate from established ones in their potential to cause harm, and focuses research on narrowing the resulting knowledge gap.

Undoubtedly, materials intentionally designed and engineered to behave in specific ways because of their fine structure are at the forefront of the new challenges being faced in toxicology. These materials increasingly demonstrate biological behavior that results from a synergistic interaction between chemical composition and physical form. But whether these new challenges can be confined to a narrow size scale implied by “nanotoxicology” is debatable.

Rather, we would argue that a broader perspective is needed on the challenges presented by novel and functional materials, that captures the idea of “sophisticated materials.” These are substances that arise at the intersection of scientific disciplines and technology platforms, and demonstrate novel and even time and context-dependent functionality based on their engineered and increasingly complex physicochemical structure.

While many of these materials will depend on nanoscale engineering, decoupling the materials from the underlying technology – or technologies – is helpful in formulating science-based questions regarding their toxicity. In this respect, the toxicology challenge presented by sophisticated materials is to understand and address the hazards presented by materials that have the ability to enter the body, interact with it and elicit an adverse response in ways that are not adequately understood through a conventional and chemical composition-dominated perspective on toxicology.”

We conclude the review by suggesting that

We can now begin to appreciate the challenges presented by simple nanoscale materials such as TiO2, ZnO, Ag, carbon nanotubes and CeO2. But these simple materials are merely the vanguard of a new era of complex materials, where novel and dynamic functionality is engineered into multifaceted substances. If we are to meet the challenge of ensuring the safe use of this new generation of substances, it is time to move beyond “nano” toxicology and towards a new toxicology of sophisticated materials.

Maynard, A. D., D. Warheit and M. A. Philbert (2011). “The New Toxicology of Sophisticated Materials: Nanotoxicology and Beyond.” Tox. Sci. Advance Access.  DOI: 10.1093/toxsci/kfq372

Next Tuesday, we’ll be launching a new series of occasional discussions on contemporary public health risk issues at the University of Michigan Risk Science Center.  And the first topic is – no surprises – nanotechnology.

Under the tagline “No PowerPoint, no script; just stimulating conversation”, the Unplugged series will be engaging experts in lively conversation on a range of topics. Each event will be webcast (and archived), and will allow on-line discussion around the topic of focus.

Nanotechnology is the topic of the first event, being held on February 8. Under my “strict and provocative” moderation, three leading experts will engage in conversation about what nanotechnology is, what it’s significance to public health is, and how we as a society might exploit it safely and responsibly.

You can view the event on-line (or turn up for the live discussion if you are around in Ann Arbor).  You can also join the conversation by going to the Nanotechnology – Unplugged website.In fact, I’d really like to encourage as many people as possible to take advantage of this and post their questions and comments.  I’ll be doing my best to thread questions posted before and during the event into the discussion on the day.

Nanotechnology – Unplugged: Join the conversation on February 8 from 2:00 PM – 3:00 PM Eastern Time.

]]> http://2020science.org/2011/02/01/nanotechnology-unplugged/feed/ 3 http://2020science.org/2011/02/01/davos-2011-committed-to-changing-the-state-of-the-world/ http://2020science.org/2011/02/01/davos-2011-committed-to-changing-the-state-of-the-world/#comments Tue, 01 Feb 2011 14:55:21 +0000 Andrew Maynard http://2020science.org/?p=4075

Cross-posted from the Risk Science Blog.

As it did last year, the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos has left me with a daunting task – how do I summarize the highlights of the meeting in a single, short post?

The answer of course is that I can’t – Davos is so complex, diverse and multi-layered that no single account could do it justice. But sitting here waiting for the flight home, I wanted to capture at least something of the past few days.

World Leaders – world issues

This year saw the usual parade of world-leaders passing through Davos, selling their wares in public, while cutting deals in private.

In public and private, the unfolding events in North Africa, the Moscow terrorist attack and the world economy dominated discussions.

As is fairly typical at Davos, not too much that was startling or new was announced in public. But this is a meeting where off the record meetings and encounters are everything. And given the isolation, camaraderie and personal access that pervades Davos, the barriers to meaningful exchanges are perhaps lower here than at almost any other gathering of the great and good.

As one person pointed out to me – many delegates simply cannot afford to bring their usual entourage, meaning that the chances of conversations that get to the heart of issues – rather than leading a carefully choreographed dance around them – are reasonably high. And of course this is further enabled by the many social occasions that smooth the way for serious conversations.

Business leaders – revealed values. This stripping away of the buffers between public personas and the people behind them is one aspect of Davos that continues to fascinate me. It’s one of the few places I know if where you can get a sense of who someone really is, not who the PR machinery tries to convince you they are (again, because most people end up having to leave the PR machinery at the door). And no-where do I find this more revealing than in talking with business leaders.

It may be because the World Economic Forum actively develops partnerships with organizations that share its commitment to improving the state of the world, but I’m encouraged by the number of high profile CEO’s and business leaders I speak with here who are motivated by far more than bottom-line dollars. A cynic might claim that it’s all part of the PR machinery, which managed to sneak past the barriers. But I don’t think it is. There’s no need for these people to spend a week of their busy schedule talking about how to make the word a better place – and what excites and inspires them – unless they really mean it.

Davos provides a rare glimpse of the idealists still alive and beating in these world-wise corporate leaders. Of course, talk is a lot easier (and cheaper) than action, and these people have to deal with colleagues, shareholders, stakeholders and an economic landscape that doesn’t necessarily allow their true values and passions to flourish . But I suspect that one of the “positive dangers” of Davos is that, having revealed their inner-self to others who have the capacity to fan the flames, many business leaders emerge just that little more motivated to look beyond the bottom line, and toward changing the world for the better.

Global risks – global opportunities

This year, global risks were a central theme of the Davos meeting. The World Economic Forum formally launched the new Risk Response Network, and risk permeated many of the sessions. The aim is to establish resources and mechanisms to respond to emerging global risks more effectively than in the past – whether they are associated with natural disasters, social collapse, financial melt-down or technological failure.

While most of the discussions revolved around avoiding risk or managing the consequences, there were a few that touched on actively mitigating risk – and supporting global economic and social growth through new approaches to risk. These included developing the means to actively reduce risks through technological, policy and social mechanisms. But they also included the need to increase resilience within global institutions, infrastructure and communities – so that when things go wrong, the system can respond and adapt quickly and effectively.

This need for resilience was highlighted in a final session on global risk I was participating in, as we considered what lessons can be learned from events in Tunisia and Egypt on our dependence on and the fragility of the internet.

Science and technology – more than entertainment

Science and technology were more prominent than usual at this year’s meeting. There were packed-out sessions on the current state of science, and on contemporary issues such as the nature of the universe and personalized medicine. Yet there was still a sense that this was entertainment for delegates – a light distraction from the serious business of putting the world right, and something for accompanying partners to attend.

Nevertheless, there were indications that this is changing. The World Economic Forum has established a science advisory council that will be looking at how science can be better-integrated into the program in future years. A number of conversations I had with scientists and technologists – and there were a surprising number of them at the meeting – revolved around their desire to see science and technology rise up the agenda. And business leaders like Ellen Kullman – CEO of DuPont – were vocal about the need to pay more attention to technology innovation in building a better world.

As this is one of the aims of the Global Agenda Council I chair, it was good to see the beginnings of a groundswell toward shifting from science and technology as the Davos entertainment, to making them a significant part of broader discussions on building a sustainable future.

Social media – WEF goes grass-roots?

The use of social media was huge at this year’s meeting.

I’m not sure whether the impact is there yet – that will come – but content generation was significantly higher than previous years. Over 400 delegates were tweeting from the meeting, providing real-time insight into proceedings. Delegates were also encouraged to record short YouTube videos responding to questions posed by members of the public – and many did (including a number of prominent participants). Many delegates contributed guest blogs to the WEF blog, providing further insight into the meeting. And FaceBook marketing director Randi Zuckerberg (sister of Mark) conducted livestream webcast interviews with everyone from Tony Blair to Bill Gates to Bono.

Having seen social media in action at this year’s meeting, I’m convinced that this is the beginning of a powerful outreach and engagement by WEF that breaks the established boundaries of the organization – watch this space!

Real lives – strong inspiration

There are numerous misconceptions about Davos – many of them characterizing it as a meeting where gray men in gray suits with gray imaginations get together to schmooze with other, equally gray men, usually with no appreciable outcome. But as anyone who has been a part of the meeting can attest to, this is about as far from the truth as you can get.

At the heart of Davos is a common desire to change the world for the better. Invited participants are carefully selected according to what they do – not just who they are (even the celebrities are here because of the initiatives they are involved in, rather than the star status attached to them. And paying participants are carefully filtered and cultured to encourage a meeting where common values permeate the conversations.

This is perhaps best summed up in this year’s closing session, where Klaus Schwab, the Executive Chairman of WEF, spoke with Christine Lagarde, the French Minister of Economy, Nick Vujicic, President of Life without Limbs, and two of the Davos Global ChangeMakers – Raquel Silva and Dan Cullum.

The topic was “Inspired for a lifetime”. Unusually for a meeting characterized as full of “gray men”, there was hardly a dry eye in the house. (you wouldn’t have known at the time, but I’ve yet to speak to someone who was there who didn’t admit to tearing up at times). But I’m convinced that this wasn’t because of an overtly emotional program – it was simply because the delegates recognized in the panelists a common desire to act to make the world a better place.

Without the context of the preceding four days, the session might have come across as overly sentimental. But with the weight of Davos behind it, it was grounded in a reality that transcended mere sentimentality.

But don’t just take my word for it – the closing session of Davos 2011 can be viewed below.

Cross-posted from the Risk Science Blog.

Take a metaphorical slice through this year’s annual World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, and Global Risk would be writ large through every part of it.  Hot on the heels of the sixth Global Risk report, this year’s meeting saw the launch of the Risk Response Network – a new initiative to facilitate responsive, informed and integrative action on global risks.  And throughout the meeting, sessions and conversations abound that are grappling with understanding and mitigating emerging risks in today’s complex and interconnected world.

But important and impressive as this agenda is, I wonder whether there is something missing.

I’m approaching risk at Davos this year from three perspectives: exploring the relationship between science, innovation and risk; understanding the impact of emerging risks on public health; and developing technology-enabled approaches to risk mitigation.  The common themes here are science and technology – both as potential drivers of risk, and as sources of possible solutions.

From my work in science, technology and public health, it is clear that a deep understanding of the roles of science and technology in addressing risk is critical to building resilient and sustainable responses to global risks.  It is also increasingly clear that integrating this understanding into the process of addressing global risks is vital.

Yet this is where the World Economic Forum’s timely thrust to address global risks seems to be somewhat lacking.

Science and technology are certainly well-repented on the Davos agenda.  But I get the sense that they are part of the alternative program – “the entertainment” as one colleague described them.  This is probably a little harsh.  But the science and technology sessions do tend to be aimed at wowing delegates, rather than engaging them in exploring integrated solutions to pressing problems – a bit of light relief from the serious business of fixing the world’s problems.  Even the IdeasLab sessions, which get the closest to engaging people on emerging issues, struggle to make science and technology part of a larger conversation.

Don’t get me wrong – I’m the first to admit that there’s a lot to get excited about in contemporary science and technology.  But if robust solutions are to be found to global risks, science and technology must be integrated into mainstream discussions – not treated as an entertaining but often incomprehensible sideshow.

And that means elevating science to a seat at the table as new solutions to emerging risks are explored.

I realize that this is a daunting task. I’ll be the first to admit that scientists can be an intimidating bunch – an image they don’t necessarily try too hard to dispel.  But until scientists, engineers and technologists are seen as partners in the process of risk mitigation, not just  consultants or contractors, building resilient solutions to global challenges is going to be one tough call.

Cross-posted at ForumBlog.org – the World Economic Forum blog

My high school physics teacher used to tell me there’s no such think as a dumb question.  It’s a lesson I’ve carried with me through my professional career as a scientist.  But it’s a philosophy that might be just about to come back and bite me.

This year at Davos, a number of sessions are including formal “challengers” – people officially sanctioned to pose those dumb questions everyone else is thinking, but are too afraid to ask.  And guess what – I’m one of this years’ challengers.

I will be challenging some of the best and brightest minds in the business as they talk about the science agenda for 2011. Stating their case will be Francis Collins – Director of the National Institutes of Health and famed for his leadership of the Human Genome Project; Rolf Heuer – Director-General of the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN); Ray Johnson – Senior Vice President and CTO of Lockheed Martin; and Christopher Viebacher – CEO of Sanofi-Aventis.

These are people who know their stuff, and will undoubtedly present a compelling and inspiring case for science and technology that leaves few opportunities for probing questions.

As if that wasn’t enough, this is my community.  I’m one of them.  But by challenging them, I risk setting myself apart as a trouble-maker, a contrarian, or worse – a Luddite!

Yet the role of challenger is a vital one.  Because without sober reflection, it’s all too easy for experts to become disconnected from the broader context in which their work has relevance.  And more often than not, it’s those “dumb” questions – the ones no-one dares ask – that most effectively help re-ground the conversation in reality.

So despite some trepidation, I’m looking forward to being the middle man here, and challenging four very smart people to think critically about what their work means in a broader social, economic and political context.

Will I pull it off and still be able to show my face in public?  I hope so.  Because when it comes to science in particular, it is vital that we learn to more effectively integrate the awe-inspiring stuff in the lab into everyday stuff that changes lives.

And the first step to better integration is to ask the right questions – no matter how dumb they might seem.

Technology innovation was front and center of Obama’s State of the Union speech tonight.  This is extremely good news for those of us who believe more needs to be done, and done better, to ensure science and technology translate into effective solutions that enable economic and social growth.  But recognizing the importance of technology innovation is just the start – ensuring the continued success of investment in technology innovation is where the hard work really begins.

What makes this all the harder is that the world we live in now is profoundly different from the world half a century ago when Sputnik stimulated a new era of science and technology innovation.  Obama’s “This is our Sputnik moment” is a great rallying cry – and an important one.  But over the past half century the dynamic between having a good idea and coming up with a sustainable solution has changed – increasingly complex technologies and a vastly more interconnected  world have ensured that.

Which leaves us with the question – if technology innovation is as important as Obama (and many others besides) believes it is, how do we develop the twenty first century understanding, tools and institutions to take full advantage of it?

One thing that is clear is that in connecting innovation to action, we will need new insights and “intelligence” on how to make this connection work in today’s world.  These will need to address not only the process of technology innovation, but also how we develop and use it within an increasingly connected society, where more people have greater influence over what works – and what doesn’t – than ever before.  This was the crux of a proposal coming out of the World Economic Forum Global Redesign Agenda earlier this year, which outlined the need for a new Global Center for Emerging Technologies Intelligence.

But beyond the need for new institutions, there is also the need for far more integrated approaches to building a sustainable future through technology innovation – getting away from the concept of technology innovation as something that is somebody else’s business, and making it everybody’s business.  This was a central theme in the World Economic Forum report that Tim Harper of CIENTIFICA Ltd. and I published last week.

Then there’s the complex interplay between the possible good and bad consequences arising from technology innovation.  These include potential health and environmental impacts that could arise from new technologies if they are not developed responsibly;  the difficulties of ensuring innovation in governance keeps pace with innovation in technology; and the dangers of failing to implement innovations that could make significant improvements to quality of life.

This interplay between possible consequences is made all the more complex by the increasing need to work within a distributed rather than a command and control decision-making hierarchy in today’s society.  How can we work together in partnership to ensure the long-term success of innovations where there is considerable uncertainty over the consequences of our actions? This is a challenge that will be explored further in a symposium this coming September on Risk, Uncertainty and Sustainable Innovation.

Obama is right on target in recognizing that technology innovation remains vital to long-term social and economic prosperity.  But getting it right?  That’s a whole other challenge!

]]> http://2020science.org/2011/01/25/obama-spotlights-innovation-but-how-do-we-get-it-right/feed/ 3 http://2020science.org/2011/01/24/davos-2011-desparately-seeking-google/ http://2020science.org/2011/01/24/davos-2011-desparately-seeking-google/#comments Mon, 24 Jan 2011 22:58:46 +0000 Andrew Maynard http://2020science.org/?p=4039

It’s that time of year again – 2000+ of the worlds top movers and shakers are beginning to descend on the Swiss ski town of Davos for this year’s Annual World Economic Forum meeting.  Political heavyweights like Clinton, Annan, Sarkozy and Cameron will be intermingling with the likes of Gates, Bono,  deNiro, Carreras and a plethora of CEO’s and others as they evaluate the state of the world, and plan for the future.

And amidst them will be a whole bunch of people who don’t live on such an ethereal plane – people like me.

This year’s meeting is on the theme “Shared Norms for the New Reality” – reflecting, according to WEF, the foremost concern of many leaders that we are living in a world that is becoming increasingly complex and interconnected and, at the same time, experiencing an erosion of common values that undermines public trust in leadership as well as future economic growth and political stability.

To address this theme, the meeting is built around four “pillars”:

• Responding to the New Reality
• The Economic Outlook and Defining Policies for Inclusive Growth
• Supporting the G20 Agenda
• Building a Risk Response Network

I’ll be speaking in a couple of sessions on risk, science and innovation in the 21st century, and will be blogging and tweeting from the meeting – when I get the chance.

The big session for me will be on Wednesday afternoon, when I undertake the role of “challenge” to a panel addressing the science agenda in 2011.

I think I’m supposed to be the one asking the awkward questions – the ones everyone’s dying to ask, but is to scared to.  A tough call given a lineup that includes Francis Collins (NIH Director), Rolf Heuer (Director-General of CERN), Christopher Viehbacher (CEO of Sanovi-Aventis) and Ray Johnson (senior VP and CTO of Lockheed-Martin).

I’ll let you know how it goes.

Through the rest of the meeting I’ll be catching people outside sessions and in the corridors to talk about the recent white paper Tim Harper and I published on technology innovation, and about new approaches to addressing health risks in a complex and interconnected world (aligning myself neatly with this year’s theme).

I’ll also be keeping an eye on the myriad other groups, events and sideshows going on here, including the “Davos Teens”.  These are a select group of five Global Changemakers – young social entrepreneurs – chosen to attend and participate in the meeting.  As well as being a brilliant idea (I wrote a little about the previous group last year), there’s every evidence that this will be a vibrant and challenging group of teens who will be making every effort to shake up the middle-age pomposity that sometimes threatens to overwhelm Davos.

Then there are the parties.  Actually, I’m not making much headway into the party scene yet – my attempts to press leading figures for tips on getting an invite to the infamous Google party went no-where.  Even Boris Johnson didn’t return my email, although I did get a reply from Alison Levine – who sadly was as much in the dark as me).  But the week is young…

In the meantime, time to catch the plane from a snowy Michigan to a Snowy Switzerland, and work out exactly what I’m going to be challenging Francis, Rolf et al. on…

Further information on the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos can be found here.  There will also be regular and relatively informal updates on the WEF blog (I might be writing a guest blog later in the week).  And participants tweeting from the meeting can be followed here.

Over at the Risk Science Center blog, I have posted a request for help on web-based nanotechnology resources. Given that 2020 Science has such a nano-savvy readership, I thought I would cross-post the request here.

If you have any suggestions on useful websites dealing with nanotechnology – especially those describing potential and actual applications – please do pop over to the Risk Science blog and add them to the comments there.  Thanks!

What are the clearest, most helpful web-based resources on nanotechnology that you know of?

On February 8, we are hosting a conversation on the opportunities and challenges of nanotechnology, with three leading experts on the benefits, risks, and social/policy aspects of the technology.

And this is where I could do with some help.

On the event’s website, we are compiling a short list of key web-based resources on nanotechnology. The current list is a starting point only, and needs to be fleshed out considerably over the next two weeks.

If you have websites or web-based resources you find particularly helpful on providing information on the benefits, challenges, and nature of nanotechnology – including applications arising from the technology – please post them in the posts’ comments section.

We will be adding them to the Nanotechnology – Unplugged website as appropriate.

Thank you!

“Technology doesn’t just happen” – people must be sick of hearing me say this.  Yet as chair of the World Economic Forum Global Agenda Council on Emerging Technologies, it’s something I seem to end up saying rather a lot as we strive to help decision-leaders maximize the benefits of technology innovation, while avoiding untoward consequences.

The trouble is, it’s all too easy for people to assume that technology innovation will provide bolt-on answers to pressing problems as and when they are needed – a potentially dangerous misconception.  Which is why the Council has just published a new paper through the World Economic Forum that looks at how we develop and use technology within an increasingly complex and interconnected society, and how we can translate this into developing timely, cost effective and acceptable solutions to pressing global challenges.

Building a Sustainable Future: Rethinking the Role of Technology Innovation in an Increasingly Interdependent, Complex and Resource-constrained World is co-authored by myself and Tim Harper – director of CIENTIFICA Ltd. – and takes a hard look at the increasingly tough task of ensuring technology innovation helps solve the problems we need it to solve as a society, rather than just the ones that are easy to solve.

In it, we recommend that action is needed in seven areas, including increasing access to intelligence on new technologies; building new partnerships and engaging more effectively with stakeholders; re-examining how innovative ideas are translated into effective solutions to pressing problems; and rethinking the process of global technology governance.

Working with my colleagues on the Emerging Technologies Global Agenda Council, I kept coming back to three things in particular as we crafted the paper:

How can we ensure relevant and responsive technology-based solutions to problems are available as and when they are needed? I worry sometimes that focus too much on the successes of technology innovation in helping address issues,  and neglect to contemplate our failures.  Yet it is where we have failed to cure a disease, or to relieve poverty and hunger, or to increase someone’s quality of life, that we have the most to learn.  It’s easy to match a new technology to a pressing need and claim success. It’s much harder to start with a need, and develop technology-based solutions that will help resolve it – especially if timescales are long and profits are potentially marginal.  How can we change the paradigm so we start with the problem, not the solution?

How can we proactively invest in technology innovation so that it gets us where we need to be, when we need to be there? I am constantly surprised at the blind faith many people have in science and technology – assuming or hoping that it will deliver just-in-time solutions to just-discovered problems.  The reality is that it takes years – decades even – of targeted research and development to arrive at relevant and responsive technology innovations.  Which means that in today’s world, we need to become increasingly forward-thinking and integrative in how we craft and implement the science and technology agenda.  How can we move away from technology innovation being perceived as an off the shelf solution to problems, and toward it being understood as an integrated part of addressing issues?

How can we avoid new risks from new technologies, while also using them to reduce established and emerging risks? Emerging technologies lead to new potential risks – thousands of years of technology innovation attest to this.  As the rate of technology innovation increases and the world becomes increasingly interconnected, we are going to need new ways to respond to these risks if we are to build a sustainable future.  Yet there is another side to the innovation-risk equation.  Technology innovation also has the potential to provide the means of managing or avoiding old and new risks – but only if it is developed and implemented appropriately.  How do we ensure that emerging technologies are an integral part of the toolkit we use to reduce risks, and improve quality of life?

These weren’t the only drivers behind the paper – there were many other issues we grappled with, and high on the agenda was the economic imperative of thinking increasingly smartly about how we develop and use emerging technologies.  But the questions surrounding quality of life and risk struck a particular chord with me, having worked at the intersection between emerging technologies, risks and benefits for a number of years.

Next week sees the annual World Economic Forum meeting in Davos.  This year the theme is Shared Norms for the New Reality, and is built around four “pillars”: Responding to the New Reality; The Economic Outlook and Defining Policies for Inclusive Growth; Supporting the G20 Agenda; and Building a Risk Response Network.

I will be there, talking to people about the Building a Sustainable Future paper in the context of each of these pillars.  But it is that last pillar that I will be focusing on in particular.  Sustainability depends on getting smart about identifying, addressing and managing risks – often before they have happened, and this means getting smarter on how we develop and use new technologies.  The potential is there to do great things.  There’s also the danger of technology innovation increasing the chances of harm if we aren’t careful.  The trick will be to learn how to be more sophisticated, integrative and informed in how we develop and use technology innovation.  And to ensure we are proactive in planning for a technology-driven future.

Because… technology doesn’t just happen – you know!

_______

The Building a Sustainable Future white paper can be read and downloaded here.  Tim and I also gave a guest blog on the paper on the World Economic Forum blog – ForumBlog.org

Cross posted from the Risk Science Center Blog:

There’s a lot to like in President Obama’s perspective on 21st century regulation. Writing in today’s Wall Street Journal, Obama outlines his thinking behind his new executive order to review and revise a convoluted and potentially disruptive federal regulatory system. But if regulation in the 21st century is to be effective in protecting people and enabling economic growth, it needs to become more sophisticated and innovative, while avoiding the traps of over-simplistic thinking.

I’m glad Obama puts a strong emphasis on public health in his op ed. It’s all too easy easy for these conversations to degenerate into regulatory bashing in favor of business freedom – a trap Obama deftly avoids. Yet he is spot on when he calls out the dangers of out-dated and ill-conceived regulations potentially stifling innovation and economic growth – an outcome which ultimately also impacts on public health, albeit in less directly measurable ways.

The trick is to find that sweet spot between preventing harm while supporting the economy.

As society and the technologies it relies on become ever-more complex, finding this sweet spot is becoming increasingly difficult. New technologies are spawning new products that cause harm in new and sometimes unanticipated ways. An ever more interconnected global society is eroding traditional command-and-control oversight frameworks. And a growing flood of tantalizing yet often incomplete data is creating confusion over what is safe, and what is not.

Yet the same changes that are making old-style regulation increasingly difficult are also opening up opportunities for innovation in how we protect people. Group-sourcing expertise and perspectives in new ways can help craft more responsive regulation. Novel approaches to collecting and analyzing information are able to offer new insights into balancing safe and profitable practices. New approaches to science and engineering are beginning to push risk management up the innovation chain – engineering risk out of products from the get-go. And new technologies are delivering new ways to evaluate and manage potential risks.

As well as cutting out the dead wood from the existing system, 21st century regulation also needs to innovate and take advantage of these opportunities. This will bring us closer to finding that sweet spot where both safety and economic success are achieved. But to achieve it, we will have to be increasingly sophisticated about how we think about risk and regulation.

It’s all to easy to over-react to potential risks, and to push for action based on gut instincts rather than clear evidence. This is why formal regulation starts with evidence-informed decision-making, rather than instinct and assumption. But there is also a danger of the pendulum swingging the other way, and instinctive assumptions leading to inadequate regulation.

Although the point was well-made, I must confess to being a little concerned by Obama’s comment on saccharin when he stated that “if it goes in your coffee, it is not hazardous waste”. When it comes to risk, dose and context are everything – what is good in moderation in one place can be deadly if present in excess in another. Saccharin is now widely acknowledged as safe for human consumption – hence Obama’s quip. But it won’t always be the case that what is good in small quantities is also good when dumped by the ton in the environment – especially if it has potential long-term, environmental or trans-generational impacts.

Rather than rely on over-simplistic assumptions on risk, we need now more than ever to develop sophisticated, evidence-informed yet socially, economically and politically responsive approaches to human health risks. This is at the heart of risk science, where evidence and understanding drive the process of reducing risks.

Hopefully it will also be at the heart of US regulatory reform, as we continue to strive for the sweet spot between safety and success.

- all to often, these conversations emphasize the need to prevent regulation interfering with business concerns. Obama on the other hand places human health high on the agenda. But at the same time he acknowledges the importance of good regulation in

Next week sees the debut of the PBS science program NOVA’s new series Making Stuff – a four part special “exploring the materials that will shape our future”, hosted by NY Times technology columnist David Pogue.

You may recall that I expressed some reservations over the program’s approach to bioengineered materials a few weeks back – reservations that plenty of others didn’t share I hasten to add…

The sequence – which wasn’t necessary the final version of what will air on January 19th – involved the production of spider silk protein from a genetically modified goat.  What worried me was the rather off-hand way safety and ethical concerns were handled.

So it was interesting that, following those comments, NOVA’s David Levin asked me to record a podcast with him on the darker side of another set of materials covered in a later program – nanomaterials.

The podcast was posted yesterday (and can be listened to here).  Despite the rather scary title of “The Dangers of Nanotech” I thought Levine did a good job of taking the conversation through some of the concerns surrounding new nanoscale materials.

The associated NOVA episode – Making Stuff: Smaller – airs on January 26.  I’m interested to see what David Pogue makes of nanomaterials, and the broader field of nanotechnology.

In fact, I must confess that I’m eagerly anticipating the whole series.  Despite my reservations over the whole goat thing, the series has the potential to delve into some rather exciting new developments in the field of materials science.  It starts with strong materials (Jan 19), followed by small materials (nanomaterials – Jan 26), leading into materials designed to make the world a cleaner, more sustainable place to live (Feb 2) and ends up examining the world of “smart” materials (Feb 9).

Making Stuff kicks off January 19 – watch the series, and let me know what you think!

As I report on the Risk Science Blog, the latest iteration of the World Economic Forum Global Risks Report has dropped “Nanoparticle Toxicity” as an emerging and significant risk.  Instead, the far more generic “Threats from New Technologies” takes its place.

This is a welcome move – but I do have some reservations.

Certainly, identifying nanoparticles as a specific risk made little sense – research and thinking over the past few years has indicated not only how heterogeneous nanoparticles themselves are, but also the range of risks they are likely to present (spanning negligible to probably significant).  Perhaps more importantly, the possibility of nanoparticles to cause harm is exceedingly context-dependent, making it very dificult to generalize about risks.

Replacing nanoparticles with new technologies does introduce a placeholder for a far more interesting and potential worrysome array of technologies – including specific applications of nanoscale science and technology.  It also opens the way for discussions on the potential risks of technology platforms such as synthetic biology, geoengineering and robotics (just three of many).

But the sheer breadth of this placeholder surely makes it somewhat meaningless – how can you place an – albeit subjective number – on the likelihood and magnitude of “new technologies” creating problems in the future?

So while it’s good that the placeholder is there, there is a lot more work to be done in unpacking it, and having evidence-grounded discussions on the potential impacts of plausible and specific technologies.

Global Risks 2011 can be downloaded here. The website also allows the information presented in the report to be explored in greater depth.

]]> http://2020science.org/2011/01/12/nanoparticle-toxicity-dropped-from-the-world-economic-forum-global-risks-report/feed/ 6 http://2020science.org/2011/01/04/us-national-nanotechnology-initiative-draft-ehs-strategy-good-in-part/ http://2020science.org/2011/01/04/us-national-nanotechnology-initiative-draft-ehs-strategy-good-in-part/#comments Wed, 05 Jan 2011 00:51:39 +0000 Andrew Maynard http://2020science.org/?p=3972

Update 1/6/11: The comment period has been extended to January 21

There are only two days left to comment on the current draft US National Nanotechnology Initiative Environmental, Health and Safety strategy (the comment period closes January 6) – so time to read the draft, log in to the portal and add your comments.

This is actually a rather important opportunity for anyone with an interest in the development of safe and successful nanotechnology-based applications to the US government in developing and implementing a strong safety research strategy.

I finished reviewing the draft strategy this afternoon and submitted my thoughts – admittedly over five comments, given the just-slightly frustrating cap on 4000 characters per comment.  Just so that all the words appear in one place at least somewhere, I’ve included a copy of my comments below.

I must confess I tried to be positive in my comments – despite suggesting (a little naughtily) that trashing 75% of the report might make it better!  Admittedly there were plenty of things here that worried me – failing to ground an analysis on what needs to be done on what has already been achieved; a sorry excuse for a chapter on risk assessment and management; and a reliance on project numbers and $$ as indicators of whether research needs are being adequately addressed, to name just a few.  But there was also a ray of sunshine at the end of the report – a chapter that holds the seeds of a coordinated approach to nanotech risk research that could well work – even within the limitations of an inter agency initiative with no budget and no authority.  As I note below, this could form the core of an effective cross-agency strategy that focuses more on a framework for enabling targeted and responsive research, rather than the research itself.

Oh, and I was also pleased to see that, in response to criticisms from the National Research Council after the previous strategy, there is now an in-your-face mission statement – just so no-one misses it this time round.

The NNI strategy portal can be accessed here – comments on the EHS strategy need to be submitted by close of business (presumably) on January 6.

Review of the National Nanotechnology Initiative 2011 Environmental, Health and Safety Strategy

Andrew Maynard

Director, University of Michigan Risk Science Center

Submitted Jan 4 2011

The close of 2010 marked the tenth anniversary of the US National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI).  Over the NNI’s first decade, the potential health and environmental impacts of the products of nanotechnology – engineered nanomaterials in particular – have moved from being of relatively minor concern to having a significant supporting role in the US federal government’s nanotechnology strategy.  Reflecting this, the federal government – under the auspices of the Nanotechnology Environmental and Health Implications working group (NEHI) – has published a series of documents and strategies aimed at coordinating, focusing and stimulating agency research addressing the safety of engineered nanomaterials.  On December 6 2010, the NEHI invited comments on the latest in this series of documents – the draft National Nanotechnology Initiative 2011 Environmental, Health and Safety Strategy.  The following comments respond to this request.

In developing a cross-agency research strategy, the NNI is in something of a difficult position.  Neither the NNI, NSET (the National Science and Technology Council Committee on Technology Subcommittee on Nanoscale Science, Engineering and Technology) or the NEHI have budgetary, policy or operations authority over the federal agencies they represent.  So developing and implementing a research strategy that is both actionable and accountable is a tough challenge.  At the same time, urgent, coordinated, responsive and substantive action is needed across federal agencies according to the NEHI and other organizations, if the safe development and use of engineered nanomaterials is to be ensured.  This begs the question: how can the NEHI respond to this urgent need, without the conventional tools of resources and authority that usually back up a strategy?  Or to be more specific, does the current draft environmental, health and safety strategy manage to “pull it off”?

Having read the draft carefully, I think the answer is no.  But, there are some rather bright glimmers of hope here.  In reviewing the draft document, my first instinct was to conduct a line-by-line evaluation of the content – what is missing, what is redundant, what doesn’t make sense, what could be expressed better, and what could be developed further.  But this would have missed the central question of whether the strategy enables what needs to be done to be done, and if it doesn’t, how could it be different – within the constraints of a cross-agency document?  This therefore is where the bulk of my comments focus.

To start with, it’s worth asking what the federal government hopes to achieve here?  I’m pleased to say that the mission is clear in the draft  – protect public health and the environment, use science-based risk analysis and management approaches, and foster technological advances that benefit society.  This is where the government is going – a nanotechnology-enabled future where people are healthy, and risk-based decision-making is informed by science.  With this established, the next logical question is how are they going to get there – which also prompts the supporting question of where are they now?

This is where the draft strategy gets a little shaky.

The question of where the federal government – and the field of nanomaterial safety – is now – is addressed in a somewhat lateral and obscure way within the draft document.  Research needs are based in part on recommendations from a series of stakeholder workshops that presumably reflected the state of the science – but in almost all cases they are presented as a given, with little or no justification or rationale.  This demands a great deal of trust from the reader – especially as the draft strategy is rather sparse on citations that support the statements being made.  But more importantly, the document provides no indication of the extent to which progress has already been made towards each research need to date – both within and beyond the confines of the federal government – and what still needs to be done to achieve the strategy’s stated mission. What we are left with is a one-sided list of research areas that – while important – are presented with very little context.  What context there is tends to focus on the number and cost of federally-funded research projects in specific areas.  On occasion this is useful information – especially where there is no research being funded in a particular area – but I struggled to understand how these numbers indicated research and information gaps than need to be filled if concrete progress is to be made towards the draft strategy’s stated mission.

On the issue of how the federal government intends getting to where it wants to be, the draft is something of a mixed bag.  Chapters 1 – 6 – which form the bulk of the document – provide next to no insight into how the NEHI and its respective agencies intend to address the research and information gaps that are identified.  Chapter 7 is different.  Addressing the need for new actions and initiatives on working with data (informatics and modeling), it is still more focused on needs than solutions.  But it does provide a number of clear challenges to agencies on how they work with data if they are to make progress.  And as an aside, it also presents some of the more innovative and interesting ideas to appear in the document.

However, it is chapter 8 – The Path Forward – where the draft document becomes particularly interesting.

In chapter 8, there is a move toward developing an approach that will help nudge federal agencies towards where the NEHI feel they should be, that begins to get around the limitations inherent in a cross-agency group. This comes in two parts – a set of principles that will help encourage agencies to move in the right direction, and a framework that supports the NEHI and the Nanotechnology Coordinating Office (NNCO) in implementing the strategy.

The principles addresses six areas: (in my words) prioritizing nanomaterials of interest; establishing systems for reproducible, reliable and translatable research; helping ensure high quality data; coupling research to different risk assessment needs; partnering with stakeholders and engaging with the international community.   These form the beginnings of a robust framework that sets the scene for ensuring relevant and responsive research is conducted, rather than dictating who does what.  It is a welcome move.  The six areas make sense, and are well articulated.  My only slight concern is that there is perhaps too strong an emphasis on standard measurements, terminology and nomenclature.  These are important – but it must always be acknowledged that they are a means to an end only, not an end in themselves, and that there are areas of research that can be stifled by an over-zealous application of standards.

The implementation and coordination framework that follows articulates eight areas where the NEHI and participating agencies can and are taking action together.  These include the extremely welcome appointment of a named Environment, Health and Safety coordinator within the NNCO, the exploitation of digital media and networking opportunities, and the facilitation of partnerships with industry.

Talking a high-level look at the draft strategy, if I was to suggest radical revisions, I would recommend ditching chapters 1 – 6, and developing chapter 8 as the core of the strategy.  This is somewhat drastic – and no doubt unfeasible. But augmented by the many other reports that exist in the public domain outlining (again and again) research needs addressing nanomaterial safety, this chapter holds the seed of an approach that enables federal agencies to work together to address a common set of goals in response to these needs.  And it is an approach that has the potential of working within the constraints of an interagency initiative.

But this still begs the question – would this be enough? Using such an approach, could the NEHI enable the federal government to make substantial progress in ensuring the safety of engineered nanomaterials and the products they are used in – to get to where they want to be?  As the document stands, I think the answer is still no.  But there is promise here.

So what would it take to craft a federal strategy that enabled agencies to work together more effectively in ensuring the safe use of nanomaterials?  I’m not sure that this is entirely possible – an internal strategy will always be constrained by the system in ways that an externally-crafted strategy isn’t.  But I do think that there are three areas in particular that could be built on here:

1. Principles. The idea of establishing principles to which agencies sign up to is a powerful one, and could be extended further.  For instance, they could include a commitment to working closely and cooperatively with other agencies, to working toward a common set of aims, and to critically reviewing progress towards these aims on a regular basis.
2. Accountability. The implementation and coordination framework set out in chapter 8 of the draft strategy contains a number of items that, with a bit of work, some group within the federal government could be held accountable to.  Formally, the NNCO would seem to be the most appropriate organization to be held responsible for progress here.  With accountability for actions that support the implementation and coordination of the strategy, a basis could be built for an actionable strategy, rather than wishful thinking.
3. Innovation. So often in documents like this, there is a sense of defeatism – “this is the system, and there’s nothing we can do to change it”.  Yet there are always innovative ways to circumvent institutional barriers in order to achieve specific ends.  I would strongly encourage the NEHI to start from the question “where to we want to go, and how are we going to get there”, rather than “what are we allowed to do”, and from this starting point explore innovative ways of making substantive and measurable progress towards the stated mission of the strategy.  Just one possibility here is to use the model of the Signature Initiatives being developed elsewhere within the NNI – which overcome institutional barriers to encourage agencies to focus on a common challenge.  Something similar to a Signature Initiative focused on predictive modeling, or personal exposure measurement, or nanomaterial characterization, could enable highly coordinated and integrated cross-agency programs that accelerate progress toward specific goals.  But this is just one possibility – there are surely many more ways of getting round the system!

In conclusion, the draft strategy is constrained by the challenges of working across federal agencies, contains a lot of information that doesn’t necessarily add tremendous value to addressing the stated mission, yet holds the seed of an effective strategy that could succeed within the constraints the NEHI is working under.

A few weeks ago, I gave a talk at the Contemporary Arts Center in Cincinnati under the slightly provocative title “Small Gods and the Art of Technology Innovation”.  The talk is now available on-line (slides and audio at least) – and viewable below – through the excellent work of the folk at CAC.

Rather sneakily, I used the opportunity to talk to a (mainly) lay audience about risk science in the 21st century – did I get away with it I wonder…?

Which were the most popular 2020 Science blogs of 2010?  In reverse order, based on page views, here are the ten most-read posts:

10.  Just how risky can nanoparticles in sunscreens be? Friends of the Earth respond

A guest blog from Georgia Miller and Ian Illuminato at Friends of the Earth, responding to a challenge I set them on addressing the safety of nanomaterials in sunscreens. http://2020science.org/2010/06/15/just-how-risky-can-nanoparticles-in-sunscreens-be-friends-of-the-earth-respond/ The post responds to this blog, and I respond in turn here.

9.  Have iPad, will travel – 48 hours on the road with Apple’s iPad

Celebrating the launch of Apple’s iPad, I try and justify its use as a serious productivity tool.  I must have bought into my own hype, because I ended up purchasing my own later in the year.  So far – no regrets!  http://2020science.org/2010/04/17/have-ipad-will-travel/

8.  Texas Instruments Graphing calculators – essential math teaching aid, or a scam?

A piece on my continuing unease over the use of graphing calculators in US middle schools.  http://2020science.org/2010/07/11/texas-instruments-graphing-calculators-essential-math-teaching-aid-or-a-scam/

7.  Lost in the Maize – First Person Shooter video games

My son’s justification as to why he should be allowed to play first person shooters (in response to this, I relented and lifted the ban!) http://2020science.org/2010/12/10/lost-in-the-maize-13/

6.  Knitting science

A slightly whimsical piece about the surprisingly rich intersection between knitting and science.  http://2020science.org/2010/07/25/knitting-science/

5.  UK House of Lords scrutinizes nanotechnology and food

British Lords apply their insight and common sense to the use of nanotechnology in food products. http://2020science.org/2010/01/07/uk-house-of-lords-scrutinizes-nanotechnology-and-food/

4.  Engaging the public on science? Surely you’re joking!

Some excellent publications from Research Councils UK on science and public engagement. http://2020science.org/2010/03/10/engaging-the-public-on-science-surely-youre-joking/

3.  Ben Goldacre, what were you thinking?!

I question some of sound science-champion Ben Goldacre’s remarks – he questions my comments, and a rare old flame-fight ensues! http://2020science.org/2010/05/01/ben-goldacre-what-were-you-thinking/

2.  Nanotechnology researchers at sea when it comes to safety

Rather than being about the safe handling of nanomaterials, this blog examined a paper in the journal Nature Nanotechnology on safe working practices, and found it somewhat wanting. http://2020science.org/2010/02/02/nanotechnology-researchers-at-sea-on-safety-issues/

1.  The secrets of engaging teens with science

Sophia Collins’ guest post on I’m A Scientist, Get Me Out of Here.  http://2020science.org/2010/04/13/im-a-scientist-get-me-out-of-here/ Interested in participating in the most exciting and innovative science engagement event of 2011? – you can still sign up for the next rounds of I’m A Scientist here.

More information on top blogs and viewing figures can be found on the 2020 Science Facebook page.

Hegswarm – what a great word!  Far more elegant and versatile than the “Gray Goo” that has nibbled at the heels of nanotechnology for the past decade.

Over the holiday break, I’ve escaped academia for the relative sanity of family reunions and mince pies, and have been catching up on some reading.  Currently I’m in the middle of Iain M. Banks’ latest novel Surface Detail – which presents a disturbing yet compelling vision of a future where mind-states can be moved between biological (i.e. gray matter) and digital (i.e. computer) media, and the idea of an afterlife becomes an engineered reality.  However, what grabbed my attention yesterday while reading the book was Banks’ concept of a “hegenomising swarm,” or “hegswarm”.

These he describes as outbreaks where

“…by accident or design – a set of self-replicating entities ran out of control somewhere and started trying to turn the totality of the galaxy’s matter into nothing but copies of themselves.”

He adds

“It was a problem as old as life in the galaxy, and arguably hegswarms were just that; another legitimate – if rather overenthusiastic – galactic form of life.”

Passing over his rather delicious allusion to questionable human traits, this seemed the perfect extension of the idea of self-replicating nanobots – the mythical constructions that turn everything in their path into copies of themselves.

Maybe as the nanotechnology is re-invented under the “Nano2” banner we need another nano-bogeyman to help it along – in which case, I nominate the nano-hegswarm as the number one contender.

But, I must confess, all this is really just an excuse to pull out one of my favorite nanotech videos for the holiday season – Ransom Riggs‘ rather excellent if entirely fictitious short “Destroy Civilization with Nanotechnology… in Just Six Amazing Steps.”

Enjoy, have  great holiday, and watch out for those hegswarms!

Getting an unbiased perspective on nanotechnology is probably as close to impossible as you can get.  Governments invest in nanotech because they believe in its ability to inspire new research and stimulate economies and social change.  Corporations invest in nanotech because they think it will give them an edge in a hyper-competitive world.  Neither is likely to tell you that nanotechnology is not a good thing, without having very strong reasons to do so.  And NGO’s?  Non Government Organizations come in so many flavors that about the only generality that can be made is that they exist for a purpose – and that purpose is rarely based on an unbiased world-view.

One of the more vocal NGO’s in the nanotechnology arena has been the Canadian-based ETC Group. Formerly the Action Group on Erosion, Technology and Concentration, ETC is dedicated to the conservation and sustainable advancement of cultural and ecological diversity and human rights.  To this end they often cast a critical eye on big-government and big-business-driven technology developments which – in their estimation – threaten to undermine the cultural, environmental and human rights values they adhere to.

Back in 2002, ETC called for a mandatory moratorium on the use of synthetic nanoparticles in the lab and in products, based on growing concerns over the uncertain health impacts of some nanomaterials.  The call didn’t win them many friends in government or industry, and established the group as having an aggressive social agenda as they raised questions about the emerging field.

Then in 2005, the ETC Group surveyed the political landscape of nanotechnology (through their eyes) in a special report on “nanogeopolitics”.  They concluded

“With public confidence in both private and government science at an all-time low, full societal dialogue on nano-scale technological convergence is critical. It is not for scientists to “educate” the public but for society to determine the goals and processes for the technologies they finance. There is no need for a sui generis (and inevitably voluntary) code of conduct for nanotech, but there is need for a much broader and legally-binding International Convention for the Evaluation of New Technologies (ICENT). South governments negotiating commodity and manufacturing trade-offs at the WTO Ministerial in Hong Kong in December will be asked to give away sovereignty in exchange for market access for raw materials or finished goods that may quickly become irrelevant with nanotechnology’s development.”

Now, ETC have revisited the nanogeopolitical landscape with a follow-up report: The Big Downturn?

This is clearly an assessment with an agenda – the ideology behind it is that technology development doesn’t by default enhance cultural and ecological diversity and human rights, that the actions of big-government and big-business need to be held up to close scrutiny, and that those with a vested interest in developing new technologies cannot be trusted to develop them responsibly without the support of a strong international regulatory framework.

That said, it is a well-researched report that is worth taking seriously – especially because it provides a worthy counterweight to pro-nano assessments.

Don’t get me wrong, this is not an unbiased report.  Evidence is weighed on the scales of social and environmental justice, with an eye to confirming what was already assumed.  Because of this, some pieces of information are missing, and others are given a somewhat less negative assessment than they perhaps warrant.  And there is often what I would consider a naive perspective on what nanotechnology actually is, or the effectiveness of hard regulation in ensuring safe and socially beneficial technology development.

Yet many of the evaluations in areas that I am familiar with do the source material justice, and reflect concerns that have been articulated by others.  The information presented in the report – backed up by over 400 citations – is informative, and is delivered in a style – intentionally I’m sure – not too dissimilar from a number of frequently quoted commercial nanotech analyses.  In some cases, the report doesn’t even go as far as I would have expected.  For instance, it stops short of examining the socioeconomic ramifications to developing economies of trying to keep up with the US/EU/Russia/Asia nanotech machine – perhaps more out of fear of being left behind rather than the certainty of social and economic growth.

Ultimately, this is a report that is a foil to assessments coming from pro-nanotechnology sources, which are almost always biased in the opposite direction, and in this role it is a useful resource.

If you have a vested interest in nanotechnology succeeding commercially, or are dependent on nanotechnology-related funding, or are ideologically-committed to the concept of technology-driven social development, you tend to think more carefully about writing stuff that could undermine a nanotechnology-future than you do about writing stuff that might support it. This is a bias that infuses government and industry reports.  It’s also a bias that I admit appears in the stuff that I write – I do adhere to the idea that technology-based solutions can help address pressing issues.  And that’s OK – it’s the way things work.

But it is important to recognize this bias.  And to balance it out by considering alternative perspectives.

This latest nanotech report from ETC does need to be read with open eyes.  But it does present an important counter-view that should be taken seriously as technologies such as nanotechnology are developed and deployed.

In reading it, you probably won’t agree with everything, and may occasionally find yourself having to resist the urge hit something – or someone.  But it does provide a comprehensive and important perspective on the broader social and political ramifications of the push to develop nanotechnology.

But that’s just my opinion – you might want to read it for yourself, just to check how off the mark I am!

I’m feeling a little lazy today, so this is a cross-posting from the University of Michigan Risk Science Center newsletter.  It draws in part on the talk I gave at the Cincinnati Contemporary Arts Center this past weekend as part of their “where do we go from here?” series.  The whole setup at CAC by the way was excellent – engaged audience, great space, and wonderful staff.

Slow exposure of a complex pendulum, used to illustrate the challenges of addressing risks in a technology-dependent and integrated world.

In early December, I found myself in the bizarre position of giving a public lecture on risk science at the Cincinnati Contemporary Arts Center. Despite the seemingly strange juxtaposition of art, risk and science, together with my wife’s admonitions of “what do you know about art anyway?!” it was an immensely gratifying event – not least because it forced me to think about what risk science means to people who aren’t in the risk business.

The question of what risk science is was one that I had tackled a couple of weeks previously at the inaugural Charles and Rita Gelman Risk Science Professorship lecture. Here, I argued that in a complex world, blindly following our instincts can actually increase the chances of people being harmed. What we need is a systematic and unbiased way of addressing human health risks. Science provides a great solution here – by focusing on prediction, evidence and correction, it factors human foibles out of the decision-making process; at least in principle.    Hence “risk science” as a basis for evidence-driven decision-making.

But then I asked – is this vision of risk science enough to keep us healthy, wealthy and wise in the 21st century? The answer was no. Hard data are clearly critical to informed decision-making. But the numbers just aren’t aren’t enough when it comes to making decisions within increasingly complex and highly interconnected systems. In today’s society, we also need to understand and respond to a whole host of other factors that influence the effects associated with certain courses of action. In other words, if we are to make effective decisions on human health risks in the 21st century, our concept of “science” in “risk science” needs to expand to cover expertise in the social, economic and political sciences and beyond.

As you might imagine, this was the starting point for some interesting conversations at the Contemporary Arts Center. And one that particularly intrigued me was the question of how you help people make good decisions on risk in the face of all this complexity and interconnectedness? How do you forge connections between people that increase the chances of them making evidence- based and socially-responsive decision-making? One of the answers was – unsurprisingly given the setting – through art. Where facts fail, art enables connections to be made and understanding to flow between people in ways that circumvent our struggle to make sense of cold numbers.

Which begs the question – is “risk science” broad enough to embrace the arts as well, or do we need to start thinking about a complimentary field of “risk arts?”

The Risk Science Center newsletter with the original piece can be read here.

The US National Nanotechnology Initiative’s latest iteration of its Environmental, Health and Safety Research Strategy has just been posted on-line for public comment.  Between now and January 6, anyone who is interested is encouraged to read the draft and comment on the on-line portal – hopefully sparking a dialogue which will strengthen the final document.

You may remember that the previous strategy was given a bit of a hard time by the National Academies of Science – less for its substance than for the way it was – or wasn’t – brought together in a research strategy.  It’ll be interesting to see how things have evolved over the past couple of years or so.

I haven’t read the draft strategy yet, but I’m hopeful that this will be a stronger document.  For one thing, it builds on input from a wide range of non-government experts.  For another, the feds have taken the bold but extremely welcome step of initiating a public review period.  This makes a lot of sense – it provides another chance to iron out those niggling mistakes that everyone makes while writing documents, and it helps a broader community to be a part of the process, rather than just passive recipients.

I’ll be posting comments on the draft over the next few weeks – within the constraint that I am currently also working on the National Academies panel developing a complementary strategy.  But in the meantime, I would encourage anyone with the slightest interest in the potential health and environmental impacts of engineered nanomaterials to read the report, and join the conversation.

The on-line portal can be accessed here.

And before I go, I can’t resist noting that, once again, comments are restricted to 4000 characters.  I am so tempted to tweet my comments, just to get into the spirit of things!  The good news is that multiple posts are allowed!

There’s something rather liberating about being asked to give a no-holds talk on your perspective on life, the universe and everything.  So when the Cincinnati Contemporary Arts Center asked if I would speak as part of their “Where do we go from here?” series, I jumped at it.

No holds barred is probably an exaggeration – I’ve been asked to talk about my perspective on what we face in the future and how we re going to handle it.  And I should probably be mindful of the audience’s sensibilities.  But even so, that’s a pretty large almost-blank canvas to work with.

And to fill this canvas, I’m going to talk about “small gods”.

Actually, I’m going to talk about risk – which is at least something I know a bit about.  But the central question here is whether we are up to handling the future.  Are we sufficiently aware of our limitations that we are able to build a better future through partnerships and humility?  Or are we merely “small gods” – people with a smidgen of power who mistakenly think they rule the world?

And as you would expect, I will be grounding this in technology innovation.  Of course, tech innovation is only one factor influencing the future.  But it is a pretty important one – there aren’t many global issues that either haven’t been enabled or exacerbated by technology innovation (WikiLeaks comes to mind as the issue of the moment), or couldn’t be handled better through a more effective use of tech innovation.

Here’s the official blurb:

Some believe human ingenuity can solve all ills. Some believe technology will transform the world. Some believe we are on the verge of creating life and bending it to our will. Some people believe we are gods. But what if we are small gods–knowing just enough to be dangerous as we flex our technological muscles? Looking to the future, we are facing some of the greatest challenges in human history. We will turn to technology as we strive to build a sustainable future–we already are. But how do we ensure the technologies we embrace do more good than harm? As we ‘go from here’ into an uncertain future, how do we avoid the temptation to act like small gods and learn to harness the power of technology for good?

And just in case you are interested, here’s the slightly longer (but not half so catchy) summary that I’ll use as my starting point:

We are at a turning point in human history.  People are more technologically capable than they have ever been. Scientists and engineers are developing a unsurpassed mastery over the building blocks of everything around us – from atoms and molecules to the DNA that defines every living organism.  Yet as a species we face unprecedented challenges – ensuring upward of seven billion people can live comfortably in a shrinking and interconnected world where food, water and energy are increasingly precious resources.  As our technological prowess is matched by the growing challenges we face, it is by no means clear over whether our actions will take us to a future heaven or hell.

How we navigate this uncertain future depends on one small, four letter word – “risk”.  In the 21st century, risk – and how we handle it – will influence everything from curing cancer to putting food on the table to enhancing human abilities.  Technologies that are just over the horizon have the potential to profoundly change our lives.  Designer life forms; while-you-wait personal genome sequencing; climate-engineering; drugs designed to make you smarter; batteries made by viruses -  these and other innovations are on their way – some are happening now.  Each has the potential to make our lives better.  But the consequences of getting them wrong are far from certain.  As we develop them, we need to ask: Are we truly masters of our universe, or are we merely small gods – with just enough knowledge to cause a lot of damage?

How we deal with risk makes all the difference.  Business as usual – and we run the danger of becoming small gods. Thinking – and acting – differently about risk, and we have the chance to build a better world.

As we move on from here into a technologically complex future, which will it be?

The talk is at 4:00 PM on December 11, at the Cincinnati Contemporary Arts Center.

Update 12/6/10:  Got the time wrong!!  Talk starts at 4:00 PM on the 11th.

As you’ll have gathered from last week’s Lost in the Maize, I’ve been on the road this week.  In fact, I am writing this on the plane back to Detroit, looking forward to a quick wash, shave, sleep, and catch-up with family, before heading off to the Society for Risk Analysis annual meeting in Salt Lake City next week.  It’s been a long, busy week, but overall a good one.  I succeeded in getting in and out of London, despite the snow.  I had the luxury of expanding a 20 minute talk to a 40 minute lecture at the British Thoracic Society (we were two speakers down due to the weather).  I even managed to get a bit of real work done.

But the highlight of the trip was probably the World Economic Forum Summit on the Global Agenda in Dubai.

This is a rather unique meeting. Every year, the World Economic Forum Global Agenda Councils bring together several hundred of the world’s foremost thinkers, decision-makers and decision-influencers to grapple with some of the biggest challenges facing global society – ranging from poverty to financial and political stability to organized crime to social justice and equity.  Within this eclectic mix, I chair the Global Agenda Council on Emerging Technologies – a council focused on addressing the potential of emerging technologies to address global issues, and the dangers of getting technology innovation wrong.  We have around a dozen experts on the council from industry, government and academia, and meet via teleconference through the year to identify and address key global issues associated with emerging technologies.

And once a year, we meet in person with all the other Global Agenda Councils in the United Arab Emirates – for the past three years we have been in Dubai.
As you can imagine, it’s quite a meeting:  Around 600 leading thinkers brought together for two and a half days, with the express purpose of mixing it up and exchanging ideas and perspectives – stimulating new insights into tough global challenges.

The format is split between individual council sessions, formal cross-council dialogues, and networking opportunities – with a few plenaries and summing-up sessions thrown in.  Of course, the council sessions are where the hard work gets done.  But it’s the networking and cross-council meetings where the fun stuff happens.

There’s something rather invigorating about talking with senior policy makers, corporate executives, civil society and religious leaders, and some rather smart academics.  Especially when they are interested in what you have to say.  I’m not sure whether it’s the seniority of the participants or the fact that we come from such diverse backgrounds, but there is remarkably little ego at this meeting – on the whole, participants readily acknowledge the limits of their own knowledge, and are eager to discover how they can work with others to address complex issues.

This becomes particularly apparent outside the formal meetings.  There is a unique willingness at the summit for people to strike up conversations with strangers – over lunch or drinks, or just because you happen to be standing next to each other.  And given the rather broad range of expertise floating around, conversations can be both enlightening and serendipitous.  There aren’t too many other meetings I know of where you can talk international financing, religion, technology innovation and space tourism over dinner with the foremost experts in each area!

But of course all this activity also makes it a pretty demanding meeting – especially if you are chairing a council.  On the two full days of the summit, I was working flat out between 6 in the morning and 10 at night on council business.  And after that, I had the “day job” to do – making sure that the Risk Science Center was running smoothly, compiling material for upcoming presentations and keeping up with the usual flood of emails – finally falling into bed between 1 and 2 each morning.

Nevertheless, it was worth it.  Beyond the stimulation of meeting with such an interesting bunch of people, the Council on Emerging Technologies has the potential to make an impact – visibility, and access to senior decision-makers is one of the great advantages of working with the World Economic Forum.  Don’t get me wrong – we are only a small council and so have to choose what we focus on carefully.  But we do have an opportunity to push the opportunities and challenges of developing responsible and responsive new technologies up the political and corporate agenda.  And in a world that is increasingly technology-dependent, that’s kind of important.

But I must confess, after all the excitement, I am looking forward to a bit of sleep.

Before the next round of meeting madness!

In an interconnected world, global issues demand integrative solutions.  It’s a statement that many people would agree with – in systems where associations between cause and effect are complex, you ignore synergistic inter-relationships between factors at your peril.

But when it comes to technology innovation, it seems that the rules don’t apply.

This week I am at the World Economic Forum Global Agenda Councils meeting in Dubai – I’m chairing the Council on Emerging Technologies.   Our task is deceptively simple: How do we as a society ensure emerging technologies support responsive, sustainable and resilient solutions to global issues, without them leading to new problems? But as we are learning, finding answers is not easy.  And the first hurdle we face is convincing people of the need to think holistically about emerging technologies.

It seems that all too often, for all the talk of integrative solutions to global issues, when it comes to technology innovation integration is the last thing on people’s minds.

I was forcibly reminded of the uphill struggle we face this afternoon, listening to BBC World News presenter Nik Gowing.  Gowing was moderating a debate on natural resource scarcity, to be broadcast on the BBC World Service in a few days’ time.  The debate addressed a specific question: As global population rises toward 9 billion people and the demand for natural resources such as water, food, oil and minerals increases, how do we meet the challenge of making diminishing resources go further?  On the panel were Louise Arbour, President and Chief Executive Officer of the International Crisis Group (ICG); James Cameron, Vice-chairman of Climate Change Capital; He Yafel, Ambassador and Permanent Representative of the People’s Republic of China to the United Nations; Malini Mehra, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of the Center for Social Markets (CSM) and Kevin Rudd, Australian Minister of Foreign Affairs.

I was interested to see how systemic the panel’s thinking was on potential solutions, and in particular what their take was on the role of technology innovation.  So I was just a little surprised when the “technology count” – the number of times that technology was raised as part of the solution to dwindling resources – came out as a resounding zero.  This was a discussion on issues that are deeply influenced by technology innovation, which revolved exclusively around social, political and economic perspectives.

I was left wondering whether technology was not on the table simply because it is seen as too complex, or whether there was a naive assumption that, as crises arise, scientists and engineers will simply pull a metaphorical white rabbit out of their technology magic hat.

To be fair, the debate was specifically framed in terms of social, political and economic drivers.  But I have to wonder: if integrative solutions are the key to complex and interdependent issues like resource depletion, how can we ensure that technology innovation is part of the conversation, rather than a somewhat optimistic bolt-on?

This concern is fueled by many similar experiences, and is one reason why raising awareness of the need to integrate an understanding of emerging technologies into dialogues on a multitude of global issues is high on the Council on Emerging Technologies’ agenda.

And no-where is this more important than in responses to global risks. As society faces new systemic risks, emerging technologies have three key roles to play.  They can provide tools that enable emergent risks to be monitored, tracked and better-understood; they offer potential solutions to addressing emerging issues; and they can act as agents of change which may lead to a dramatically altered risk-landscape.  But for the positive potential that is nascent in emerging technologies to be realized, integrative approaches to their development are essential.  The danger of neglecting to do this is a potential failure of emerging technologies to lead to workable solutions to pressing issues.  Or worse – the emergence of technologies that instead of reducing risks, lead to greater risks.

Of course, there are many discussions taking place on how emerging technologies might solve global problems.  But they are usually separate from the social, economic and political factors that so often drive decision-making.  And in a technologically complex and interconnected world, this is a recipe for disaster.

In moving forward, emerging technologies need to be brought in from the cold.  They need to be moved up the global agenda.  And they need to take their place alongside social, economic and policy factors in crafting integrative solutions to interconnected issues.  Because the one thing we can be sure of is that if we don’t take an integrative approach to emerging technologies, when we most need a technology “white rabbit,” the hat will be empty!

I should add that even though I am the chair of the Emerging Technologies Council, these are my own views, and do not necessarily reflect those of the council.

Quick update 11/30/10: Tim Harper – fellow Council member – has just posted this helpful piece on the definition of emerging technologies: http://cientifica.eu/blog/2010/11/the-long-journey-from-nanotechnology-to-emerging-technologies/

As Director of the University of Michigan Risk Science Center, it’s probably not surprising that I’m constantly being asked “what on earth is risk science?”  What is surprising is how hard it is to come up with a clear and concise answer.  Which is why I decided to spend a good portion of my “installation” lecture the other week developing the idea of what I think of as being Risk Science.

As the lecture is now available on-line, I thought it worth posting a link to it just in case anyone is interested. But with a huge caveat – the sound quality is abysmal!

Ironically – as the Risk Science Center is very much focused on communication – this is a great example of how not to use on-line videos of lectures to communicate.  In fact, if it wasn’t for the fact that there’s some useful content here, I would bury the video out of shame, and pretend that it never existed.

The AV folk are going to try and clean the sound up (good luck to them!), and if they succeed, I might think about chopping this up into more accessible chunks.  But for now, on the assumption that there may be one person at least out there who might find this of use, here’s the link:

Building a Sustainable Future – The Role of Risk Science

The interesting stuff begins around five minutes in by the way, after all the pomp and ceremony.

And just in case you are interested in a more accessible account of my perspective on risk science, I was pleased with Gwyneth Shaw’s recent write-up in the New Haven Independent, under the headline A Call For Stepping Up “Risk Science”

(The PDF of the slides associated with the lecture are available here, but I’m not sure how useful they are without the accompanying narrative)

]]> http://2020science.org/2010/11/28/risk-science-a-personal-perspective/feed/ 3 http://2020science.org/2010/11/21/risk-uncertainty-and-sustainable-innovation-feedback-sought-on-symposium-blurb/ http://2020science.org/2010/11/21/risk-uncertainty-and-sustainable-innovation-feedback-sought-on-symposium-blurb/#comments Sun, 21 Nov 2010 18:11:24 +0000 Andrew Maynard http://2020science.org/?p=3837

Despite the risk of receiving absolutely no comments (please don’t let me down!), I thought I’d try something new and ask for some feedback on the background blurb for a meeting I’ve been working on.

The meeting is a symposium on Risk, Uncertainty and Sustainable Innovation being organized by the Risk Science center next September.  I’ve been struggling with the blurb for this meeting before it goes out – especially striking the balance between something that captures the imagination (and hopefully the attention) of potential speakers, sponsors and attendees, and something that has clarity and substance.

The text below is my latest draft.  What I would love to know – today ideally (knowing that you all are desperate for something to break the boredom of a Sunday afternoon) – is whether in your opinion this works, whether it is fluff without substance, whether it is the perfect insomnia cure, or whatever.

Please, please add your comments below – no matter how brief, or how qualified/unqualified you feel you are to say something.

Thank you!

Risk, Uncertainty and Sustainable Innovation

New perspectives on emerging challenges

As we strive to build a sustainable future, do we need to rethink the relationship between risk, uncertainty and innovation?  Today’s accelerating rate of technology innovation promises profound personal, social and economic advances. But in an ever-more complex, interconnected and resource-constrained world, sustainable innovation is jeopardized by emergent risks, together with increasing uncertainty over potential benefits and impacts.  And no-where is this more apparent than at the intersection between technology innovation and human health.  Drawing on thought-leaders from a wide range of backgrounds and expertise, this symposium provides a unique forum for exploring new ideas on integrative approaches to health risks, uncertainty and innovation, as we look to develop sustainable solutions to global challenges.

Background: As technologies become more sophisticated, pressures on global resources grow and society becomes ever-more interconnected, governments, businesses and citizens are facing increasingly complex challenges as they strive to build an economically, socially and environmentally sustainable future. Over the past century, technology innovation has accelerated to the point where scientists and engineers have greater control over materials, organisms and systems – from the atomic scale to the planetary scale – that ever before.  This has facilitated a radical shift in global communication, leading to an interconnected society where the flow of information, ideas and influence transcends geographical, economic and social boundaries.  At the same time, a growing and increasingly plugged-in world population is placing unprecedented demands on ever-scarcer global resources.

The result is a world where innovation is both a driver of and a potential source of solutions to an increasing number of emerging global challenges.

If we are to adapt and thrive in this changing world, we urgently need to better-enable sustainable innovation – the sustainable development of relevant and responsive new understanding, processes and products that support long-term advances in the quality of human life and the environment.  Yet sustainable innovation is inextricably intertwined with risk – particularly the danger of causing harm to human health – and uncertainty over the consequences of our actions.

Technology innovation leads to emergent risks – the likelihood of causing harm in a manner that is not apparent, assessable or manageable based on current approaches to risk assessment and management.  The more complex and rapid the innovation, the greater the chances of perceived or actual risks emerging that require new and responsive approaches to minimizing their impact.  But as a clear understanding of risks and how to manage them will always lag behind innovation, technology innovation is also dogged by uncertainty – particularly over how a specific course of action may lead to harm, and how this can be avoided.

If innovation is to support sustainable solutions to 21^st century challenges, new and integrative approaches to risk and uncertainty are required.  New insight is needed on the interplay between risk, uncertainty and sustainable innovation.  Methods of moving risk-based decision-making upstream in the innovation cycle need to be explored.  And greater understanding of is needed on enabling collaborative decisions within an increasingly interconnected society in the face of uncertainty.

These are the challenges explored in the 2011 Symposium on Risk, Uncertainty and Sustainable Innovation. Drawing on thought-leaders in industry, government, academia, the media and other sectors, the symposium will provide a unique opportunity to explore new ideas on sustainable innovation in the face of growing global challenges, emergent risks to human health, and increasing uncertainty over the potential benefits and consequences of technology innovation.

Friends of the Earth have just released a new report challenging claims that nanotechnology will lead to greener, more energy-efficient technologies, lower-impact technologies.

I’ve only had the chance to skim through the report so far, and so don’t have detailed comments on it.  But on my initial skim a number of things struck me:

• The report is written from a specific perspective that questions the validity of claims made of nanotechnology – especially that it will “deliver energy technologies that are efficient, inexpensive and environmentally sound”
• It is pretty comprehensive, covering nanotechnology and solar energy, wind energy, hydrogen energy, oil and gas extraction, batteries, supercapacitors, nanocoatings and insulators, catalysis and reinforced parts for airplanes and cars.
• However, it doesn’t cover all nano-applications in the energy sector.  Two examples are the use of heterogeneous catalysts in vehicle exhausts and to reduce the energy overheads of a multitude of processes, the use of nanomaterials to develop more efficient power lines.
• The report also tends to focus on areas where it is easier to construct position statements challenging statements on the positive use of nanomaterials.
• Nevertheless, it appears to be a significant and well-written counterbalance to publications that promote the benefits of nanotechnology in the energy sector without deep and critical evaluation of the pros and cons of the technology.

Are the issues raised valid and in need of further exploration?  It’s worth reading for yourself to decide.  I’ve included the executive summary below – the full report (88 pages) is available here. Agree or disagree?  Feel free to comment below!

In a world increasingly concerned about climate change, resource depletion, pollution and water shortages, nanotechnology has been much heralded as a new environmental saviour. Proponents have claimed that nanotechnology will deliver energy technologies that are efficient, inexpensive and environmentally sound. They predict that highly precise nanoman- ufacturing and the use of smaller quantities of potent nanomaterials will break the tie between economic activity and resource use. In short, it is argued that nanotechnology will enable ongoing economic growth and the expansion of consumer culture at a vastly reduced environmental cost.

In this report, for the first time, Friends of the Earth puts the ‘green’ claims of industry under the microscope. Our investigation reveals that the nanotechnology industry has over-promised and under-delivered. Many of the claims made regarding nanotechnology’s environmental performance, and breakthroughs touted by companies claiming to be near market, are not matched by reality. Worse, the energy and environmental costs of the growing nano industry are far higher than expected.

We also reveal that despite their green rhetoric, governments in the United States, Australia, the United Kingdom, Mexico, Japan and Saudi Arabia are using public funds to develop nanotechnology to find and extract more oil and gas. The world’s biggest petrochemical companies, including Halliburton, Shell, BP America, Exxon Mobil and Petrobras have established a joint consortium to fund research to increase oil extraction.

The performance of nano-based renewables has been considerably less than predicted. Efficiency of solar energy conversion by nano solar panels is still about 10 percent behind that achieved by silicon panels. The technical challenges of bringing renewable energy laboratory achievements to market have been prohibitive in many instances. The United States President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology states that in 2009 only one percent of global nanotechnology-based products came from the energy and environmental sector.
The energy demands and environmental impacts of manufacturing nanomaterials are unexpectedly high. Manufacturing carbon nanofibers requires 13 to 50 times the energy required to manufacture smelting aluminium, and 95-360 times the energy to make steel, on an equal mass basis. A team of United States researchers has concluded that single walled carbon nanotubes may be “one of the most energy intensive materials known to humankind”.

Due to the large energy demands of manufacturing nanomaterials, even some nano applications in the energy saving sector will come at a net energy cost. For example even though strengthening windmill blades with carbon nanofibers would make the blades lighter, because of the energy required to manufacture the nanoblades, early life cycle analysis shows that it could be more energy efficient to use conventional windmill blades.

Much-touted nano developments in the hydrogen sector are at a very early stage. It is improbable that cars powered by renewable energy generated hydrogen will be on the roads in the next ten or twenty years – the period in which emissions cuts are critical. In the meantime, development of hydrogen cars entrenches reliance on fossil fuels to produce the hydrogen.

Most nanoproducts are not designed for the energy sector and will come at a net energy cost. Super strong nano golf clubs, wrinkle disguising nanocosmetics, and colour-enhanced television screens take a large quantity of energy to produce, while offering no environmental savings. Such nanoproducts greatly outnumber applications in which nano could deliver net energy savings.

The environmental demands of nanomanufacturing are higher than that of conventional materials. Nanomanufacturing is characterised by very high use of water and solvents. Large quantities of hazardous substances are used or generated as byproducts. Only one tenth of one percent of materials used to manufacture nanoproducts found in computers and electronic goods are contained in the final products. That is, 99.9 percent of materials used in manufacturing become waste products.

Despite the serious uncertainties, there is a growing body of research demonstrating that some nanomaterials used in energy generation, storage and efficiency applications can pose health and environmental risks. Carbon nanotubes are touted for use in electronics, energy applications, and specialty car and plane parts. However, early research shows that some forms of nanotubes can cause mesothelioma, the deadly cancer associated with asbestos exposure.

The release of nanomaterials to the environment could also result in accelerated generation of potent greenhouse gas emissions. Antibacterial nano silver is used widely in clothing, textiles, cleaning products, personal care products and surface coatings. Yet preliminary study shows that when nano silver is exposed to sludge, similar to that found in typical waste water treatment plants, four times the typical level of the potent greenhouse gas nitrous oxide is released

Nanotechnology is not an unqualified environmental saviour nor will its widespread use in everything from socks to face creams enable us to pursue ‘business as usual’ while substantively reducing our environmental footprint. At best, such claims can be interpreted as the result of wishful thinking on the part of proponents; at worst they can be seen as misleading greenwash.

Nanotechnology is a powerful technology that has the potential to deliver novel approaches to the methods by which we harness, use, and store energy. Nevertheless, Friends of the Earth warns that overall, this technology will come at a huge energy and broader environmental cost. Nanotechnology may ultimately facilitate the next wave of expansion of the global economy, deepening our reliance on fossil fuels and existing hazardous chemicals, while introducing a new generation of hazards. Further, it may transform and integrate ever-more parts of nature into our systems of production and consumption.

Update 11/17/10:  Replaced local report links with link to FOE report web-page

Next week I am being “installed” here at the University of Michigan.  Not in the sense of installing a carpet – as one friend suggested – but in the sense of being installed as an endowed professor.  The Charles and Rita Gelman Risk Science Professor to be precise.

To mark the occasion, I’m expected to entertain the crowds here with deep, expansive and probably incomprehensible thoughts on risk science.

Not sure I can deliver that, but here’s the ‘teaser” that was circulated on what I might be touching on:

By 2050, over nine billion people will be placing unprecedented demands on the earth’s resources – a demand that will only be met through developing and using new technologies.  But in today’s complex and interconnected world, the safety and success of technology-based solutions is by no means assured. As we strive to build a sustainable future, we need to think differently about how rapid social and technological change are leading to new risk-challenges, and how they are best addressed.  In effect, we need a new risk science for a new century. Professor Maynard will be talking about the new challenges of enabling sustainable development in a complex, interconnected and risky world.

A more accurate – but substantially more boring – account of what I’m likely to cover is given in the lecture’s abstract:

Risk is intimately intertwined with human life.  From the earliest beginnings of life, risk has been part and parcel of natural selection; forcing evolution along paths that minimize risk while maximizing benefits.

Risk has by turns stimulated and limited our own achievements as a species for thousands of years.  In fact everything we do – or don’t do – as individuals and as a society has the potential to lead to beneficial or adverse consequences.  So it’s not surprising that we have evolved sharp instincts for dealing with possible risks.

These instincts have served us well in the past. But they have proven increasingly unreliable as we have become ever more reliant on complex technologies.  To overcome these limitations, we have turned to science as a means of developing systematic and evidence-based approaches risks that aren’t compromised by human vagaries.  The resulting “risk science” – built on sound scientific principles – has supported the rapid development of many significant technologies over the past hundred years.  But heading into the 21st century, it is increasingly doubtful whether this “old” risk science will continue provide the necessary support to build a sustainable future.

We are entering a unique time in humanity’s history:  We face a future dominated by complex and rapidly developing technologies; unprecedented global interconnectedness; and dwindling natural resources.  These three factors are converging to shake up not only the challenges and opportunities we face as a global society, but also the very methodologies we use to get to where we need to be.  As we embrace this future, we will need a “new” risk science – one that draws on “science” in the broadest possible sense to enable evidence-informed and socially-responsive decision-making in an increasingly complex and interconnected world.

Whatever I end up saying, I’m toying around with some new presentation techniques for the talk.  These might work, or they might bomb – either way, it should be entertaining for the audience, if not for me!

The lecture is being held between 3:30 PM – 4:30 PM on Wednesday November 17 in the University of Michigan School of Public Health – feel free to drop in if you are in the area.  There’s a reception afterward – which is never a bad thing!

]]> http://2020science.org/2010/11/12/lost-in-the-maize-9/feed/ 8 http://2020science.org/2010/11/04/international-handbook-on-regulating-nanotechnologies-sneak-peak-of-contents/ http://2020science.org/2010/11/04/international-handbook-on-regulating-nanotechnologies-sneak-peak-of-contents/#comments Thu, 04 Nov 2010 19:49:38 +0000 Andrew Maynard http://2020science.org/?p=3778

Back in the mists of time, I was approached with a crazy proposition – would I help co-edit a book on nanotechnologies regulation!  In a moment of weakness I said yes, and a little more than two and a half years later, the book is finally about to hit the shelves.

I actually think the resulting International Handbook on Regulating Nanotechnologies rather a useful, coherent and engaging collection of chapters – my co-editors Di Bowman and Graeme Hodge did a wonderful job encouraging a bunch of top thinkers in the field to write under occasionally whimsical but always relevant titles.

To whet your appetite prior to the book’s release sometime in November, here’s a sneak peak at the contents:

PART I:    Concepts and Foundations

1.    Introduction: the regulatory challenges for nanotechnologies

Graeme A. Hodge, Diana M. Bowman and Andrew D. Maynard

2.    Philosophy of technoscience in the regime of vigilance

Alfred Nordmann

3.    Tracing and disputing the story of nanotechnology

Chris Toumey

4.    The age of regulatory governance and nanotechnologies

Roger Brownsword

PART II:    Frameworks for Regulating Nanotechnologies

5.    Nanotechnology captured

John Miles

6.    The scientific basis for regulating nanotechnologies

David Williams

7.    The current risk assessment paradigm in relation to the regulation of nanotechnologies

Qasim Chaudhry, Hans Bouwmeester and Rolf F. Hertel

8.    Regulating risk: the bigger picture

Karinne Ludlow and Peter Binks

9.    Producing safety or managing risks? How regulatory paradigms affect insurability

Thomas K. Epprecht

PART III:    Case Studies in Regulating Nanotechnologies and Nano-Products

10.    The evolving nanotechnology environmental, health, and safety landscape: A business perspective

Oliver Tassinari, Jurron Bradley and Michael Holman

11.    Regulation of carbon nanotubes and other high aspect ratio nanoparticles: approaching this challenge from the perspective of asbestos

Robert J. Aitken, Sheona Peters, Alan D Jones and Vicki Stone

12.    Approaching the nanoregulation problem in chemicals legislation in the EU and US

Markus Widmer and Christoph Meili

13.    A good foundation? Regulatory oversight of nanotechnologies using cosmetics as a case study

Geert van Calster and Diana M. Bowman

14.    Therapeutic products: regulating drugs and medical devices

Rogério Sá Gaspar

15.    Regulatory perspectives on nanotechnologies in foods and food contact materials

Anna Gergely, Qasim Chaudhry and Diana M. Bowman

16.    Regulation of nanoscale materials under media-specific environmental laws

Linda Breggin and John Pendergrass

17.    Military applications: special conditions for regulation

Jürgen Altmann

18.    Regulating nanotechnology through intellectual property rights

Gregory N. Mandel

PART IV:    The Future Regulatory Landscape

19.    The role of NGOs in governing nanotechnologies: challenging the ‘benefits versus risks’ framing of nanotech innovation

Georgia Miller and Gyorgy Scrinis

20.    Voluntary measures in nanotechnology risk governance: the difficulty of holding the wolf by the ears

Christoph Meili and Markus Widmer

21.    The role of risk management frameworks and certification bodies

Thorsten Weidl, Gerhard Klein and Rolf Zöllner

22.    Risk governance in the field of nanotechnologies: core challenges of an integrative approach

Ortwin Renn and Antje Grobe

23.    International coordination and cooperation: the next agenda in nanomaterials regulation

Robert Falkner, Linda Breggin, Nico Jaspers, John Pendergrass and Read Porter

24.    Transnational regulation of nanotechnology: reality or romanticism?

Kenneth W. Abbott, Douglas J. Sylvester and Gary E. Marchant

25.    From novel materials to next generation nanotechnology: a new approach to regulating the products of nanotechnology

J. Clarence Davies

PART V:    Conclusion

26.    Conclusions: triggers, gaps, risks and trust

Andrew D. Maynard, Diana M. Bowman and Graeme A. Hodge

More information on the International Handbook on Regulating Technologies can be found here.  The anticipated publication date is late November.

This image from the first US National Science and Engineering Festival attracted my attention this morning:

It’s a wordle constructed from responses to the question “What will be the greatest discoveries and advancements science and engineering will bring us in the 21st century?”

What grabbed my attention was the prominence of nanotechnology in the mix – is awareness of nano finally on the up?

I’m not sure who or how many people responded to the question – it would be interesting to see if the organizers have more information on this.  But assuming that this represents a fair cross-section of people who participated in the Expo, it’s a fascinating snapshot of what is uppermost in people’s minds when it comes to science, technology and engineering.

You can read more about the first USA Science and Engineering Festival here.

Last week while at the NISE Net network-wide meeting, I was fortunate enough to see a preview of part of NOVA’s forthcoming series Making Stuff. The series focuses on the wonders of modern materials science. But rather than coming away enthralled by the ingenuity of scientists, I found myself breaking out in a cold sweat as I watched something that set my science-engagement alarm-bells ringing: New York Times tech reporter and host David Pogue enthusing about splicing spider genes into a goat so it produces silk protein-containing milk, then glibly drinking the milk while joking about transforming into Spider Man.

I was sitting there thinking, “You start with a spider – not everyone’s favorite creature.  And you genetically cross it with a goat – dangerous territory at the best of times.  Then you show a middle aged dude drinking the modified milk from a transgenic animal and having a laugh about it.  And all this without any hint of a question over the wisdom or ramifications of what’s going on?  Man, this is going to go down well!”

But then, after some reflection, I wondered whether I was over-reacting – maybe I’m just over-sensitized to the challenges of grappling with the opportunities and challenges presented by new technologies.  There was also a chance that I had missed something in the delivery – some of the dialogue was admittedly missing in the preview.

So I decided to post last week’s poll on the spider-goat story, just to get a sense of how others might respond to this story line.

The results were surprising, and suggested that NOVA weren’t as far off the mark as I suspected.

Unfortunately, with only 67 votes and a self-selecting pool of respondents, the data are a bit iffy to say the least.  But they do suggest that a fair number of readers (28%) approved of the milk-drinking jocular approach to communicating this research.