Prof. Kai Savolainen (Finland), MD, PhD, Research Professor and Director of the Nanosafety Research Centre. Professor of Toxicology and Chair of Dept Pharmacol Toxicol of Univ Kuopio, Director of Dept Ind Hyg & Toxicol, FIOH and Team leader of New Technologies and Risks. Expertise immuno- and nanoparticle toxicity and risk assessment. Coordinator of several EU-funded projects related to nanotechnology safety and other issues including NANOSH and NANODEVICE (FP7), and the leader of FIOH nanotechnology research programme since 2005.
Prof. Kai Savolainen (Finlandia), MD, PhD, Profesor de Investigación y Director del Centro de Investigación Nanoseguridad. Profesor de Toxicología y Presidente del Departamento de Farmacología de la Universidad de Kuopio Toxicol, Director del Departamento Ind Hyg y Toxicol, FIOH y líder del equipo de Nuevas Tecnologías y Riesgos. Experiencia inmuno-y nanopartículas de toxicidad y evaluación de riesgos. Coordinador de varios proyectos financiados con fondos relacionados con la seguridad de nanotecnología y otros temas incluidos NANOSH y NANODEVICE (FP7), y el líder del programa de investigación en nanotecnología FIOH desde 2005.
Nanotechnology is hailed as one of the enabling technologies to innovation. Nanosafety, in turn, has focus on the safe and sustainable development of nanotechnology, and on safety of its key building blocks, engineered nanomaterials (ENM). Without nanosafety research, widespread use of ENM and nanotechnologies in many sectors of society will be slowed down, and could even come to a complete stand still. Recently, NanoSafety Cluster (NSC) that brings together all European nanosafety research projects funded by the European Union Framework Programs for Research and Innovation has prepared a bottom-up strategy document entitled “Nanosafety in Europe 2015-2025: Towards Safe and Sustainable Nanomaterials and Nanotechnology Innovations”. The document lists as the key research areas for the near future the following: 1) nanomaterial identification and classification; 2) exposure, transformation and life-cycle; 3) nanomaterial hazard mechanisms, biokinetics, and vulnerable populations; and 4) risk prediction and assessment tools. The current challenge is now to implement the recommendations of the document. This is being done through research focusing on risk prediction issues, research supporting regulations, and in parallel also through finding ways to identify means to protect - for example - workers at workplaces. One approach utilized has been precautionary principle-based based Provisional-Nano-Reference-Values (PNRVs). Currently, important issues in the implementation of the NSC strategies include preparing of a regulatory roadmap –currently under work - and preparation of a roadmap that addresses means through which innovations generated in research can be transformed into products on the market. In the US, the other main actor in the nanosafety research globally, the nanosafety research themes markedly overlap with those identified in the EU. The research landscape in the US is though different from that in the EU, where research support is provided for multinational research consortia with partners from several EU Member States. In the U.S., in turn, individual Principal Investigators and their research surroundings are supported. In the occupational safety and health (OSH) research area, health research-based recommended exposure levels (in-house RELs) have been proposed by NIOHS for carbon nanotubes (1 ug/m3) and nano-sized titanium dioxide (0.3 mg/m3). The difference with the EU is remarkable; in the EU it has been considered that not enough health hazard information exists to set occupational exposure limits (OEL), and hence proposals have been put forward to establish PNRVs which are not health based, but based on the precautionary principle. Unlike RELs, they have been given in number concentrations s of a given type of ENM, and they tend to indicate the existence of exposure to a given group of ENM rather than providing an assessment of potential health hazards or risks of the exposure. It clear that more knowledge is required on ENM exposure and hazard to enable reliable health risk assessment of these materials. Supported by the EU 7th Framework Program Project NANOSOLUTIONS.