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A Guide to Balancing Nanotechnology’s Heath & Environmental Risks/Rewards
Dr. Jo Anne Shatkin is always looking to balance ‘risk’ and ‘reward’ from new scientific discoveries – a uniquely valuable asset these days as nanotechnology attempts to get a foothold in a broader array of commercial products. Dr. Shatkin has a cautionary note for nanotechnology: There are still too many “unknowns” to make informed decisions – and she wants to help.
Dr Shatkin's 'Nanotechnology: Health and Environmental Risks' helps researchers, regulators fill in nanotech's knowledge gaps to balance risk/reward.
As managing director of CLF Ventures, a non-profit affiliate of Boston’s Conservation Law Foundation, she has made a career helping researchers, businessmen and government officials work together to find the middle way between over-caution and moving forward.
Dr. Shatkin has a cautionary note for nanotechnology: There are still too many “unknowns” to make informed decisions – and she wants to help.
“I believe the uncertainty over nanotechnology risks is interfering with their development and commercialization. Uncertainty is giving rise to concerns over long term effects [of nanotechnology commercialization] and are motivating research,” Dr. Shatkin told NanoScienceWorks.org.
To help scientists, regulators and business people participate in efforts to remove these uncertainties Dr. Shatkin has written a straight-shooting book. Nanotechnology: Health and Environmental Risks lays out clearly for nanotechnology 3 key topics –
The book also recognizes that non-scientists must play a role. So Dr. Shatkin wrote it with “a non-specialist tone, in hopes to motivate many people to take action on how nanotechnology impacts the environment, health and safety.”
“It is my hope that this book provides insights that stimulate proactive measures to protect health and safety so that researchers and others will proceed with greater confidence toward safe nanotechnology development,” Dr. Shatkin said.
Bridging Science, Laymen to Assess
Nanotechnology’s Risk/Reward Balance
Dr. Shatkin brings a unique set of informed insights and real-world investigation to the search for nanotechnology’s risk/reward balance – and communicates the issues facing nanoscience clearly to the scientist and the laymen.
At present, she is working with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to identify areas where science needs to know more about nanotechnology’s risks. “EPA is in an interesting position because they are responsible for both nanotechnology applications and implications regarding the environment, and are funding research in both of these areas, while also developing internal policies for managing nanomaterials and nanotechnologies at the program level,” Dr. Shatkin said, and details EPA’s two-sided interest in finding nanotechnology’s risk/reward balance.
“On the applications side, EPA is very interested in materials that might improve air and water quality, waste prevention and remediation, and generally decrease environmental impacts associated with current technologies. EPA is actively seeking data and information to help understand the key contributors to health and environmental risks across programs and media.
In fact, Dr, Shatkin’s group is developing a set of case studies that apply Comprehensive Environmental Assessment (Davis J.M 2007) as a way to better understand nanotechnology’s potential impacts on health and the environment. “The case studies consider specific applications of existing nanomaterials with a potential for consumer exposure. It is complex to develop these cases because of the interdisciplinary expertise required to understand and evaluate exposure and effects throughout the product life cycle, and the limited data available for them,” Dr. Shatkin said. Nanotechnology: Health and Environmental Risks details her approach to such case studies as well as other life cycle approaches to risk assessment.
Beyond offering insight into the inner-workings of how the EPA is grappling with nanotechnology’s risk/reward balance, Dr. Shatkin also offers suggestions for how private industry and U.S. government agencies (as well as international agencies) can work better together.
“Public-private partnerships create an opportunity to conduct the necessary characterization work for understanding the impacts of specific nanomaterials and technologies. These don’t substitute for mandatory efforts, but they do inform and support them, particularly when there is a role for stakeholder participation,” Dr. Shatkin said. Nanotechnology: Health and Environmental Risks provides several examples of collaborations that suggest “new models for future development,” she added.
Methods for Evaluating Nanotechnology’s
Unknown Health, Safety, Environmental Risks
In perhaps one of the most valuable sections of Nanotechnology: Health and Environmental Risks, Dr. Shatkin presents “various methods” for evaluating health, safety, and environmental nanotechnology risks, along with models for how researcher (in university, private sector or government) can put them to use. We asked her to share just one example from the book:
One method is NanoLCRA, an adaptive approach for screening new materials and technologies. A researcher would apply this method to a product or process as a way to highlight potential concerns about health and environmental risks prior to scale-up. Say, for example, a researcher was considering commercializing a new product that he or she had patented, that applied a coating using nanotechnology that protected the layer below.
The method would consider the raw material, where it is derived from, the steps for making and applying the product, how it will be used, and how it would be disposed of. At each step, the researcher would ask who might be exposed to the material, whether it might be inhaled or ingested, or released to the environment. This process identifies the key concerns, and suggests a path forward to manage those concerns, whether it is to make measurements, design safety systems, or redesign the product. The intention is to conduct early stage evaluations to create safer products.
Getting Started: Identifying and
Managing Nanotechnology Risk
Nanotechnology: Health and Environmental Risks also offers some very practical steps nanotechnology researchers can take find the ‘risk/reward balance’ for their own nanotechnology work. “I’ve suggested a screening level analysis as a first step toward identifying and managing the risks from nanotechnologies. That is, a careful and documented consideration of the entire product life-cycle, to identify key exposure points. When these are identified, researchers can begin to assess and manage these exposures and risks,” she said.
To preview Nanotechnology: Health and Environmental Risks
Read a sample chapter.
Dr. Shatkin has a cautionary note for nanotechnology: There are still too many “unknowns” to make informed decisions – and she wants to help.
“I believe the uncertainty over nanotechnology risks is interfering with their development and commercialization. Uncertainty is giving rise to concerns over long term effects [of nanotechnology commercialization] and are motivating research,” Dr. Shatkin told NanoScienceWorks.org.
To help scientists, regulators and business people participate in efforts to remove these uncertainties Dr. Shatkin has written a straight-shooting book. Nanotechnology: Health and Environmental Risks lays out clearly for nanotechnology 3 key topics –
- what we know,
- what we don’t know – and, perhaps most importantly
- how to fill the knowledge gaps we face in nanotechnology, and proceed with innovations that will help, not hurt.
The book also recognizes that non-scientists must play a role. So Dr. Shatkin wrote it with “a non-specialist tone, in hopes to motivate many people to take action on how nanotechnology impacts the environment, health and safety.”
“It is my hope that this book provides insights that stimulate proactive measures to protect health and safety so that researchers and others will proceed with greater confidence toward safe nanotechnology development,” Dr. Shatkin said.
Bridging Science, Laymen to Assess
Nanotechnology’s Risk/Reward Balance
Dr. Shatkin brings a unique set of informed insights and real-world investigation to the search for nanotechnology’s risk/reward balance – and communicates the issues facing nanoscience clearly to the scientist and the laymen.
At present, she is working with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to identify areas where science needs to know more about nanotechnology’s risks. “EPA is in an interesting position because they are responsible for both nanotechnology applications and implications regarding the environment, and are funding research in both of these areas, while also developing internal policies for managing nanomaterials and nanotechnologies at the program level,” Dr. Shatkin said, and details EPA’s two-sided interest in finding nanotechnology’s risk/reward balance.
“On the applications side, EPA is very interested in materials that might improve air and water quality, waste prevention and remediation, and generally decrease environmental impacts associated with current technologies. EPA is actively seeking data and information to help understand the key contributors to health and environmental risks across programs and media.
In fact, Dr, Shatkin’s group is developing a set of case studies that apply Comprehensive Environmental Assessment (Davis J.M 2007) as a way to better understand nanotechnology’s potential impacts on health and the environment. “The case studies consider specific applications of existing nanomaterials with a potential for consumer exposure. It is complex to develop these cases because of the interdisciplinary expertise required to understand and evaluate exposure and effects throughout the product life cycle, and the limited data available for them,” Dr. Shatkin said. Nanotechnology: Health and Environmental Risks details her approach to such case studies as well as other life cycle approaches to risk assessment.
Beyond offering insight into the inner-workings of how the EPA is grappling with nanotechnology’s risk/reward balance, Dr. Shatkin also offers suggestions for how private industry and U.S. government agencies (as well as international agencies) can work better together.
“Public-private partnerships create an opportunity to conduct the necessary characterization work for understanding the impacts of specific nanomaterials and technologies. These don’t substitute for mandatory efforts, but they do inform and support them, particularly when there is a role for stakeholder participation,” Dr. Shatkin said. Nanotechnology: Health and Environmental Risks provides several examples of collaborations that suggest “new models for future development,” she added.
Methods for Evaluating Nanotechnology’s
Unknown Health, Safety, Environmental Risks
In perhaps one of the most valuable sections of Nanotechnology: Health and Environmental Risks, Dr. Shatkin presents “various methods” for evaluating health, safety, and environmental nanotechnology risks, along with models for how researcher (in university, private sector or government) can put them to use. We asked her to share just one example from the book:
One method is NanoLCRA, an adaptive approach for screening new materials and technologies. A researcher would apply this method to a product or process as a way to highlight potential concerns about health and environmental risks prior to scale-up. Say, for example, a researcher was considering commercializing a new product that he or she had patented, that applied a coating using nanotechnology that protected the layer below.
The method would consider the raw material, where it is derived from, the steps for making and applying the product, how it will be used, and how it would be disposed of. At each step, the researcher would ask who might be exposed to the material, whether it might be inhaled or ingested, or released to the environment. This process identifies the key concerns, and suggests a path forward to manage those concerns, whether it is to make measurements, design safety systems, or redesign the product. The intention is to conduct early stage evaluations to create safer products.
Getting Started: Identifying and
Managing Nanotechnology Risk
Nanotechnology: Health and Environmental Risks also offers some very practical steps nanotechnology researchers can take find the ‘risk/reward balance’ for their own nanotechnology work. “I’ve suggested a screening level analysis as a first step toward identifying and managing the risks from nanotechnologies. That is, a careful and documented consideration of the entire product life-cycle, to identify key exposure points. When these are identified, researchers can begin to assess and manage these exposures and risks,” she said.
To preview Nanotechnology: Health and Environmental Risks
Read a sample chapter.