The Nanomaterial Registry: Opportunities and challenges in informatics

The quantity of publicly available literature on nanotechnology is staggering. The interpretation, sharing and downstream analysis of the data in this literature is both complex and rapidly evolving. The complexities surrounding the research and data are largely a result of the characteristics inherent to nanomaterials, as well as the diverse test methods, protocols, and assays used to evaluate these characteristics and interactions. The Nanomaterial Registry (NR) has been developed, through cooperation with the nanomaterial community, to address challenges, such as the needs for standard protocols, methods, data formatting, and controlled vocabularies. The NR is an authoritative, web-based tool whose purpose is to simplify the community's level of effort in assessing nanomaterial data from environmental and biological interaction studies. Because the NR is meant to be an authoritative resource, all data driven content is systematically curated and reviewed by subject matter experts. To support and advance nanomaterial research, a set of minimal information about nanomaterials (MIAN) has been developed and is foundational to the NR data model. The MIAN has been used to create evaluation and similarity criteria for nanomaterials that are curated into the NR. The NR is a publically available resource that is being built through collaborations with many stakeholder groups in the nanotechnology community, including industry, regulatory, government, and academia. Features of the NR website (www.nanomaterialregistry.org) currently include search, browse, side-by-side comparison of nanomaterials, compliance ratings based on the quality and quantity of data, and the ability to search for similar nanomaterials within the NR.