DOE OSTI2013
To enable the rational design of nanomaterials for improved efficacy and safety, it is critical to understand and exploit the physicochemical properties that drive biological behavior (Morris, 2010). Data mining and computer simulation are essential for deriving information about nanomaterial behavior; however, the datasets needed to support such studies are sparse and stored across a variety of repositories and resources. Schrurs and Lison (2012) have expressed the need for more coherence and structure in the conduct of nanotechnology research. Additionally, the lack of common reporting standards and non-uniformity of information reported have proven to be significant barriers to such data sharing and re-use. The Nanotechnology Working Group (Nano WG), of the US National Institutes of Health National Cancer Informatics Program, has been focused on addressing these barriers. The Nano WG - which includes representatives from over 20 organizations including government agencies, academia, industry, standards organizations, and alliances -has developed ISA-TAB-Nano (Thomas et al, 2013), a general framework for representing and integrating diverse types of data related to the description and characterization of nanomaterials. Recognizing that nanoparticle characterization studies have many of the same challenges as ‘omics-based assays, the Nano WG joined the ISA Commons (Sansone et al., 2012) to leverage lessons learned in ‘omics data sharing. The ISA Commons community brings together 50 collaborators at over 30 scientific organizations around the globe, including regulatory and industrial participants in an increasingly diverse set of life science domains. At the core of the ISA Commons is the ISA metadata tracking framework which forms the basis for the ISA-TAB-Nano extension. The extension of the ISA framework to nanotechnology domain illustrates the power of a synergistic approach that seeks the interoperability of data across multiple research disciplines. To increase adoption, especially in the commercial arena from vendors and manufactures, the ISA-Tab-Nano data-sharing specification has also been submitted for consideration as a standard to the American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM). Delivering a community-driven specification is only the first phase of the process. To be useful and used, ISA-TAB-Nano must be implemented by tools and databases to assist researchers in reporting their data accordingly, shielding them from unnecessary complexity. Our next step is to extend the open source ISA Software Suite to provide user-oriented tools for the collection, curation, and storage of data compliant with the ISA-TAB-Nano specification. Future work will also focus on the application of the ISA-TAB-Nano format to support emerging standards on minimal information about nanomaterials in biological research (Ostraat et al, 2012; MinChar). ISA-TAB-Nano development is a community-driven effort and we welcome new contributions, collaborations and domain expertise. We invite researchers, software developers, vendors, and other stakeholders to work with us to implement the ISA-Tab-Nano format in their existing systems and research. Likewise, we welcome engagement of regulators, funding agencies, editors, and other policy makers to discuss how this standard can be used to facilitate the sharing and reuse of nanotechnology data across a wide range of disciplines. More information about the ISA-TAB-Nano project can be found online at https://wiki.nci.nih.gov/display/ICR/ISA-TAB-Nano.