Development of Environmental Impact Assessment Support Tools for Engineered Nanomaterial

Wednesday, November 20, 2013

12:00 pm to 1:00 pm
208 Hudson Hall

Presenter

Yoram Cohen

Yoram Cohen, PhD
Director of Water Technology Research Center
UCLA Institute of Environment & Sustainability
Chemical Biomolecular Engineering Department

Abstract: Assessment of the environmental impact of engineered nanomaterials (ENMs), with respect to their potential hazards and risks, requires an approach that makes use of the totality of available information that includes both qualitative and quantitative data as well as analysis tools. In this regard, standardized nanoinformatics data management and analysis tools are needed for the development of rationale decision tools. Accordingly, ongoing efforts to address the above will be described, along with illustrative examples, with respect to the development of: (a) data management/repository of ENM characterization and toxicity studies, (b) data mining and knowledge extraction approaches and tools for rapid identification of toxicity outcomes from data generated in high throughput toxicity screening (HTS) assays for different cell lines and bacteria, (c) structure-activity-relations (SARs) for correlating the properties of nanomaterials with observed biological response, (d) activity-activity relations extracted via association rule mining, (e) screening level analyses of the multimedia environmental distribution of nanomaterials subject to various environmental/release scenarios, and (f) prospects for integrating the above to provide decision analysis support tools.