NanoCommons will thus:

1. facilitate faster identification of potential NM-related risks through integrating data from across the entire real-life nanosafety workflow and through development and application of a suite of innovative computational approaches such as Physicochemical-Biological Read-Across (PcBRA), Deep Learning strategies (“Introspective Machine Learning”) and response surface mapping strategies in reduced dimensional representations and quantitative structure activity relationships (QSARs) including prediction of NMs uptake, localisation and therapeutic potential (to integrate with EU-NCL for example);
2. enable ‘safe-by-design’ approaches through QSAR & read across development coupled with ‘design of experiments’ tools to map NMs physicochemical descriptors linked with increased/reduced hazard profiles and exposure modelling.
3. support regulatory decision making by ensuring data integration, enrichment and use for predictive modelling to assess “sameness”, allow read-across & implementation of real safe-by-design strategies. These advancements can only be achieved by the project’s unique partnership, each participant being selected for being at the top of the relevant R&D and networking activities internationally.

NanoCommons’s objectives under its three pillars of activity (Joint Research – JRA, Networking – NA and Transnational Access – TA) are as follows:

1. To develop an integrated data and methods capture, management and nanoinformatics platform to enhance the accessibility and reusability of nano-related data and associated protocols, spanning from NMs manufacture and characterisation through safety assessment and risk assessment, accessible to experimentalists, modellers, risk assessors, industry and educators. (JRA)

This will include a central “integrated from end-to-end” data capture platform (integration of on-line lab notebooks, use of electronic repositories for raw data etc.) with built-in quality assurance protocols (integration of protocols / Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) / experimental instrument calibration (metrological services) and other QA aspects into data management workflow), to which EU and nationally funded projects can automatically upload, coupled with tools for automated integration of data from existing databases and data repositories, and for data enrichment, as well as creation and deployment of data dissemination mechanisms – e.g. web query, File Transfer Protocol (FTP) – also submitting appropriate data to international repositories and publishing data descriptors.

2. To provide funded and expert-supported Access to a range of data and modelling resources, knowledge management tools and nanoinformatics services integrated and developed via the JRA to the widest possible range of stakeholders across industry and SMEs, modellers, experimentalists, regulators and educators, including at the earliest stages of workflow (and lab) design and including guidance on data quality assurance including data audits and method assessment/evaluation. (TA).