Feasibility and challenges of human health risk assessment for nanomaterials

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Feasibility and challenges of human health risk assessment for nanomaterials
Created by assoceditor on 15/07/2011 11:09:31

In our latest feature article. SAFENANO's Sheona Peters provides an overview of a series of recently published articles that assess the feasibility and challenges of conducting a human health risk assessment for nanomaterials.

The unique properties of many types of nanomaterials has led to their increasing manufacture and use in many promising applications. In order to assess the current status of hazard, exposure and risk information pertaining to different nanomaterials, in 2008 the EU funded a 12-month FP7 project called Engineered Nanoparticles: Review of Health and Environmental Safety (ENRHES). ENRHES – coordinated by Edinburgh Napier University with the Institute of Occupational Medicine (IOM) acting as Scientific Coordinator - involved a comprehensive and critical scientific review of the health and environmental safety of different classes of nanomaterials, as published in the open literature. The review (available for download here) considered sources, pathways of exposure, impacts on health and the environmental in order to generate information and data suitable to attempt a risk assessment. Drawing on the results of the ENRHES report and complemented with some more recent findings, experts from the ENRHES team, with the activity led by project partners Frans Christensen and Karin Aschberger from the European Commission Joint Research Centre's Institute for Health and Consumer Protection, have now published a series of articles assessing the feasibility and challenges of conducting a human health risk assessment for four types of nanomaterials: carbon nanotubes (CNT), titanium dioxide nanoparticles (nano-TiO₂), silver nanoparticles (nano-Ag) and carbon fullerenes (C₆₀).

In our first feature article for summer 2011, Sheona Peters – SAFENANO’s Associate Editor and co-author of the ENRHES review - provides an overview of the four publications and summarises the resulting conclusions regarding the viability of undertaking human health risk assessment for nanomaterials at the current time.

Click here to read the article in full.

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