July 19, 2006 – A new report by Andrew Maynard, chief science advisor for the Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, calls for significant changes in the U.S. government’s handling of nanotechnology risk research. The study, “Nanotechnology: A Research Strategy for Addressing Risk,” proposes a new framework for systematically exploring possible risks and argues that more money is required.
“Without such an approach,” Maynard said in a prepared statement, “significant knowledge gaps — which currently exist in all areas of nanotechnology risk assessment — will persist.”
According to Maynard’s analysis, as little as $11 million of the more than one billion dollars the U.S. government annually invests in nanotechnology research and development is devoted to highly relevant research into what is safe and what is not.
To fill the gap, Maynard argues that the federal government needs an overarching strategy and comprehensive set of research priorities. Initially, he suggests that these be aimed at identifying and measuring nanomaterials exposure and environmental release, evaluating nanomaterials toxicity, controlling the release of and exposure to engineered nanomaterials, and developing “best practices” for working safely with nanomaterials, and eventually at building capacity in predictive toxicology.
The report maintains that the effort should be led by federal agencies with a clear mandate for oversight and for research of environmental, health and safety (EHS) risk. Maynard estimates that oversight and EHS research agencies need a minimum budget of $50 million per year over the next two years to devote to highly relevant, targeted nanotechnology risk-based research.
This amount is in addition to a complementary investment by federal agencies and departments participating in the National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI) on basic and applications-focused research that has the potential to help further understanding of nanotechnology risk and to aid in the development of improved research tools.
The report is available online at www.nanotechproject.org.