As we previously reported here, Rice University's International Council on Nanotechnology is starting a "Nano Good Practices Wiki." Well, its moving along nicely, and they are now calling on occupational health experts and stakeholders to help start the building process.
For information on the wiki and to participate in the survey process, go to ICON's website here and suggest away! ICON would like to have the wiki up and running by the end of the year.
Another interesting read from our friends at Nanowerk (these "spotlight" features are very good and will really get your brain going). This time around the topic addresses the nanotechnology data gap and the role peer-reviewed journals play.
Author Michael Berger points out the problems with the length of time in publishing the results of scientific studies in relation to the freshness of the data. Without repeating his well written piece, there are some particularly interesting points, such as:
He's got some other good points and examples, but I don't want to spoil the ending for you.
This raises the fairly obvious problem that the published results of research may very well be outdated and stale by the time the research paper is in circulation. It is an interesting read, and one I recommend (and it'll only take about 10 minutes).
Clearly, the delay from research to publication is a problem. As we've talked about here before, the "data gap" that exists is one of, if not the, major barrier to nanotechnology regulation and addressing the health and safety issues that are at the front of everyone's mind. But how to get the fast-paced information out faster? One of Mr. Berger's suggestions is a wiki, which we've talked about before and which ICON is proposing be used for "good practices" development. Maybe this format will work for peer-reviewed research as well (if any researchers out there are reading this, I'd be curious to know your thoughts).
Regardless, Mr. Berger and Nanowerk are correct: something has got to give between the slow pace of publication and the fast pace of the sector. What good is information that's two years old and new information has been revealed in the interim? Is there room to improve the system, or is the process of peer-reviewing the best we have? Something to think on for a while.
Our friends at Rice University's International Council on Nanotechnology (ICON) is proposing an idea that will essentially take the idea of "best practices" straight to the stakeholders in the form of a living document that is continually updated. Through using a "wiki," ICON proposes creating a set of "good practices" that companies can update along the way with their own ideas and suggestions.
ICON's wiki, or a "collection of web pages designed to enable anyone who accesses it to contribute or modify content, using a simplified markup language" as defined by Wikipedia, is expected to go live at the end of 2008, and targets the occupational safety context with three objectives:
This wiki, in my opinion, is a great idea who's time has come. We've read, on several occasions, about the static "best practices" that have been released, the Nano Risk Framework being the most notable. However, now that more and more companies are beginning to understand the issues surrounding nanotechnology, and the potential risks posed from an occupational health standpoint, this wiki can be a way for stakeholders to directly communicate with each other to share information quickly and easily.
Keep an eye on what ICON releases later this year (I'll certainly be updating this information as it becomes available), it will be interesting to see direct input from stakeholders who are addressing these issues daily.
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