Welcome DaNa, the new strategic partner of The International NanoScience Community.

Nanotechnology is considered one of the key technologies of the 21st century. The success of this fascinating technology is particularly based on its versatility. It will bring about fundamental changes of basic research as well as many sectors of industry and of life from electronics to the health care system. However, many consumers miss reliable and understandable information on nanomaterials and nanotechnology, e.g. on the basic questions:

What exactly are nanoparticles? What is meant by “exposure”? When do toxicologists speak of a risk?

These and many more questions are answered by our knowledge base: www.nanoobjects.info.

In an interdisciplinary approach, the scientists of the DaNa team from different research areas, such as human and environmental toxicology, biology, physics, chemistry, and sociology provide a knowledge base for more transparency. We process the results of research on nanomaterials regarding their influence on humans and the environment in an understandable way.

For this purpose, we integrate results of projects (funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research), analyse scientific publications, reports, and latest news on human and environmental toxicology. The state of knowledge is wrapped up in the knowledge base. Literature providing the basis of the nanomaterials knowledge base is selected in accordance with quality criteria that have been acknowledged worldwide within the scientific community. For this we developed a “Literature Criteria Checklist“ to evaluate publications. Standard Operation Procedures (SOPs) should be a basis for future projects and publications. On the basis of careful scientific practice, the DaNa project team has compiled a SOP template to fill in. Both the Literature checklist and the SOP template are available on our webpage for download.

Additionally, DaNa provides a list of FAQ, a glossary defining nano-relevant terms, a dialogue platform with contact data to other information platforms and the opportunity to ask questions to our experts via mail. DaNa is also present on Twitter, follow us: @nano_info.

DaNa is a German umbrella project funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research and supported by the Swiss government.