On July 19, 2011, the National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI) announced the release of four reports from a series of workshops focusing on issues in the nanotechnology environmental, health, and safety (EHS) arena. According to NNI, the workshops were a part of an ongoing strategy to coordinate nanotechnology-related EHS research by convening experts from industry, academia, and the federal government to share the latest information and newest developments, to discuss the current state-of-the-science, and to identify research gaps in the nanotechnology-related EHS field. NNI states that “knowledge gleaned from the nanoEHS workshop series was critical to the development of the soon-to-be-released, updated NNI EHS Research Strategy.”
Through four separate workshops, experts examined the following areas:
- Nanomaterials and Human Health and Instrumentation, Metrology, and Analytics;
- Nanomaterials and the Environment and Instrumentation, Metrology, and Analytics;
- Human and Environmental Exposure Assessment; and
- Risk Management Methods and Ethical, Legal, and Societal Implications of Nanotechnology.