Review of Recent Reports and National Research Council Committee Workshop - Research Progress on Environmental Health and Safety Aspects of Engineered Nanomaterials - page 11

committee is on PCA 7 (EHS) and Goal 4, “Supporting responsible development of nanotechnology”.
The report details a large number of agency contributions and coordination activities among the federal
agencies and international partners that support the EHS research enterprise. 4 A few are highlighted here.
The Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) and the Food and Drug Administration
joined the NNI budgeting process in 2011. CPSC has been collaborating with other federal agencies—
such as the National Science Foundation and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)—to support
the development of exposure and risk assessments of nanomaterials and to allow for updates to flag
reports of incidents that involve nanotechnology and consumer products (NSET 2012, p. 14). EPA's
nanotechnology resources were expected to increase by $1.9 million from 2011 to 2013, with increased
efforts focused on nanomaterials that are more environmentally sustainable. EPA proposed to investigate
how nanomaterial physicochemical properties influence fate and effects and to couple this research with
that on sustainable chemistry and life-cycle assessment. It recently released two requests for applications
on sustainable molecular design and synthesis and characterization of chemical life cycle. NIOSH
anticipated increasing its investment on three topics in 2013: applying prevention through design
principles in its work, developing and sharing containment and control strategies to support responsible
development of nanomaterial-based products, and expanding data on worker exposure and health issues in
high-volume nanomaterial industries and applications (for example, carbon nanotubes, titanium dioxide,
and nanosilver). The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) 2013 budget was expected to
triple from 2011 levels with increased support for development of measurement methods and standards
for detecting and characterizing ENMs and for development of standard reference materials, measurement
protocols, and predictive models. NIST released the first reference material for single-walled carbon
nanotube soot and plans to release additional nanoscale reference materials (carbon nanotubes, titanium
dioxide, silver nanoparticles, and nanoporous glass). The National Institute of Environmental Health
Sciences intends to continue investments in its Centers for Nanotechnology Health Implications
Research Consortium and is evaluating potential research opportunities in susceptibility factors,
including underlying disease, genetic factors, and age.
With regard to EHS research coordination-related activities, CPSC signed an interagency
agreement with EPA in 2011 to support research with agencies in the United Kingdom to study potential
human exposures to ENMs from consumer products and some environmental sources. In another effort,
under the leadership of the International Life Sciences Institute Research Foundation's Nanorelease
Project, agencies of the NNI are working with nonprofit groups, industry, and international organizations
to develop methods for measuring the release of ENMs from consumer materials (ILSI 2012). EPA
researchers and regulators are continuing their collaboration with other federal agencies and nations in
the international testing program on nanomaterials under the auspices of the Organisation for Economic
Co-operation and Development (OECD) Working Party on Manufactured Nanomaterials. EPA is also
partnering with other federal agencies of the NNI in the United States-European Union (EU)
collaboration to develop communities of EHS nanotechnology research.
The NNI's progress in responding to recommendations from the President's Council of Advisors
on Science and Technology (PCAST 2010) is also detailed, and issues relevant to the work of the present
committee are discussed in Chapter 3. With regard to the committee's first report, the Nanoscale Science,
Engineering, and Technology (NSET) Subcommittee of the National Science and Technology Council's
Committee on Technology (NSET 2012) states that the “NNI agencies are just beginning to assess the
first [National Research Council committee] report and consider how its recommendations may be
applied to the NNI EHS research program” (p. 61).
4 At the time of this writing, the FY 2013 federal budget has not been finalized, and federal agencies are
operating under a continuing resolution that will probably affect expected programmatic changes for NNI-funded
EHS research.