Nanosafety: Towards Safer Nanoparticles by Design. published in Current Medicinal Chemistry

Our new EU FP7 funded project GUIDEnano has just started. Under the lead of Prof. Víctor Puntes, our group is participating of the GUIDEnano consortium along with 26 partners, coordinated by LEITAT Technological Center. The project officially started on November 1st, 2013, and the kick-off meeting recently took place in Barcelona, Spain, on December 9-11, 2013.

The main objective of GUIDEnano is to develop innovative methodologies to evaluate and manage human and environmental health risks of nano-enabled products, considering the whole product life cycle. Our group participates of Work Packages 2, 3, 8, 9 and 11, but we will particularly devoted to WP7, of which we are WP leader. In this WP we will develop new technologies for risk reduction and risk management of nanomaterials, in which we mainly aim to generate nanosafety-by-design strategies for nanomaterials production.

Project website: http://www.guidenano.eu/

A new edition of the nanoLCA Workshop: “Health and Environmental Impact of nano-enabled products along the life cycle”, will take place in Barcelona (Spain), May 6-8, organized within the framework of the NanoPolyTox project, in which our group participates.

This time, the workshop counts with two distinctive sections:

• May 6: Training Workshop on Safety issues of nanomaterials along the life cycle (to be held in LEITAT, in the Barcelona area),

• May 7-8: Joint Workshop on Nanosafety: Current status & future perspectives on nanosafety (to be held in the Residència d’Investigadors, in Barcelona city)

The workshop will be co-organized by the coordinators of three European FP7 Projects (NanoPolyTox, NanoSustain and NanoFATE), and the Joint Workshop will feature the advances and contributions from these projects (day 1), together with the contributions of other FP7 nanosafety-related projects (day 1). On the other hand, the Training Workshop is particularly appealing for students and junior researchers in the nanosafety field.

More information and registration: http://www.leitat.org/nanoLCA/

Víctor Puntes, Martí Busquets and Eudald Casals will be participating from our group, and also through our extended work contributions to the NanoPolyTox project.

After the success of Nanosafe 2008 and Nanosafe 2010, the 3rd. edition Nanosafe 2012 was held from November 13 to 15, 2012, in Minatec, Grenoble, France. This conference is organized as part of the NANOSAFE project, an EU-FP7 project focused on the potential impact of nanomaterials on human health and the environment.

Our group participated with four talks and their corresponding conference proceedings; we also co-authored a fifth article presented by our collaborators at LEITAT:

• Talk Exploring release and recovery of nanoparticles from polymer nanocomposites using commercial polyamide-based nanocomposites by Martí Busquets, on November 13, at 18:00. Publication: Busquets-Fité, M., Fernandez, E., Janer, G., Vilar, G., Vázquez-Campos, S., Zanasca, R., et al. (2013). Exploring release and recovery of nanomaterials from commercial polymeric nanocomposites. J. Phys.: Conf. Ser., 429, 012048.
• Talk Characterizing nanoparticles reactivity: structure-Photocatalytic activity by Jordi Piella, on November 15, at 13:45. Publication: Piella, J., Bastús, N. G., Casals, E., & Puntes, V. (2013). Characterizing Nanoparticles Reactivity: Structure-Photocatalytic Activity Relationship. J. Phys.: Conf. Ser., 429, 012040.
• Talk Colloidaly stable, polymer encapsulated quantum dots for biological applications by Isaac Ojea-Jiménez, on November 13, at 17:45. Publication: Ojea-Jiménez, I., Piella, J., Nguyen, T. – L., Bestetti, A., Ryan, A. D., & Puntes, V. (2013). Stability of polymer encapsulated quantum dots in cell culture media. J. Phys.: Conf. Ser., 429, 012009.
• Talk The social context of nanotechnology and Regulating its uncertainty: a nanotechnologist approach by Vincent Jamier, on November 15, at 11:30. Publication: Jamier, V., Gispert, I., & Puntes, V. (2013). The social context of nanotechnology and regulating its uncertainty: A nanotechnologist approach. J. Phys.: Conf. Ser., 429, 012059.
• Talk Monitoring migration and transformation of nanomaterials in polymeric composites during climatic aging by Gemma Vilar, on November 15, at 11:30. Publication: Vilar, G., Fernández-Rosas, E., Puntes, V., Jamier, V., Aubouy, L., & Vázquez-Campos, S. (2013). Monitoring migration and transformation of nanomaterials in polymeric composites during accelerated aging. J. Phys.: Conf. Ser., 429, 012044.

Conference website and program: http://www.nanosafe.org/scripts/home/publigen/content/templates/show.asp?P=124&L=EN&SYNC=Y

[Download conference program]

• Ngoc Tran (NanoTOES Marie Curie Fellow), “Inorganic nanoparticles-protein corona: formation and controlling factors“.
• Sofía Rubio, “Synthesis, Surface Modification and Immunological properties of Peptide-conjugated Gold Nanoparticles“.
• Joan Comenge, “Gold Nanoparticles as Drug Delivery Agents for Cisplatin: Avoiding Side Effects of Chemotherapy“.

The meeting was an excellent ocassion to discuss closely with many of the top European experts on nanosafety and bio-nano interactions. In addition, the conference was held next to another mega event, the EuroScience Open Forum 2012, also held in Dublin at this time. This turned out to be a great opportunity to all the members of the group who attended many of the multiple talks on the future and impact of science in society, science policy, industry-academia relations, Nobel lectures, etc.

Prof. Víctor Puntes recently participated in a round table discussion on “Safety and Society”, as an invited panelist at NanoFormulation 2012, an event organized by the EU-FP7 Project InForm.

The event took place in Barcelona, Spain, on May 30, 2012.

Shape matters: effects of silver nanospheres and wires on human alveolar epithelial cells, Particle Fibre and Toxicology. Linda Stoehr, Edgar Gonzalez, Andreas Stampfl, Eudald Casals, Albert Duschl, Víctor Puntes and Geja Oostingh:

http://www.particleandfibretoxicology.com/content/8/1/36/abstract

Prof. Puntes gave an invited talk on the safety of nanomaterials at the event “Impacto de la Nanotecnología en la Cosmética” (The impact of nanotechnology in cosmetics), a scientific-technical workshop organized by the Spanish Society of Cosmetic Chemistry (Sociedad Española de Químicos Cosméticos – SEQC), which covered from scientific innovations to regulatory aspects of this new field.

The event took place in Barcelona, Spain, on November 10-11, 2010.

Further details and program:

http://e-seqc.org/actualidad_dt.php?id=549