HARMLESS @ NanoWeek 2022

On the occasion of the NanoCommons final conference, the whole nanosafety community came together for the NanoWeek 2022, which took place in Limassol, Cyprus from 20-24 June 2022. Led by the NanoCommons project, HARMLESS and other 17 other currently running nanosafety projects joined forces and supported organizing the event.

Projects participating in the NanoWeek2022

The conference theme was “Evolution of nanosafety and materials sustainability as we transition into Horizon Europe”, including the following topics:

Safe-and-Sustainable-by-Design of (nano-enabled) products & processes
New modelling methodologies and nanoinformatics approaches
Data Management – Databases – FAIR data
Nanomaterials go advanced – emerging challenges and foresight
Emerging “hot” topics in nanosafety

The Scientific Committee responsible for setting the programme and reviewing the abstracts comprised a group of experts from the H2020 projects that constitute the EU NanoSafety Cluster and was led by the NanoCommons Coordinator, Professor Iseult Lynch. Otmar Schmid and Tobias Stöger, coordinators of HARMLESS, were part of the Scientific Committee.

The hybrid event was very well visited with 250 attendees from the international nanosafety community interested in the breadth of activities compiled by the conference – from the Young Nanosafety Scientists speed dating (which was a massive highlight for all participants), to the technical sessions, panel discussion and poster session, to the training events, the EU-US CoRs meeting, the NanoInChi meeting and a joint EU NanoSafety Cluster meeting. Next to that, many projects held their consortium meetings on the final day.

One of the highlights of the NanoWeek2022 was the outdoor poster session with food and drinks in the amazing conference location, next to the beach.

After such a long time in online meetings, it was fantastic to meet so many from the community in person again and have some offline discussions. All-in-all, the conference was wonderful and we made great memories including some midnight-swimming in the sea before going to bed.

Additionally to the overall networking activity, HARMLESS project was among the many projects represented through:

5 poster presentations:
- Eugene van Someren and Susan Dekkers, from TNO, explaining the conceptual design of HARMLESS Decision Support System (poster 83) – DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.6806190
- Veronique Adams and Beatrice Salieri, from TEMASOL, showing the HARMLESS SSbD framework (poster 84)
- Agnieszka Gajewicz, from Gdansk University, on numerical algorithms supporting grouping and read-across of nano and advanced nanomaterials(poster 111)
- Sian Brooks, from Swansea University, on the potential genotoxic effects of industrially-relevant multi-component nanomaterials (poser 72)
- Carola Voss and Tobias Stöger, from HMGU, on the course of lung inflammation and injury caused by nanoparticle inhalation (poster 76)
1 oral presentations (Sarah Sos Poulsen, from NRCWE, on engineered nanomaterial-relevant AOPs) – DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.6806067
Sarah Sos Poulsen and Ulla Vogel, from NRCWE, gave a training on Adverse Outcome Pathways (AOPs) on nanomaterials – DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.6806125
Wouter Fransman and Susan Dekkers (from TNO) participated in the Speed Dating Session on Decision Support Systems for SSbD presenting HARMLESS upcoming DSS tool. Furthermore, Wouter was a panellist in the afterwards round table on how to coordinate and unite our efforts to bring our S(S)bD tools to the industry.
Mario Pink (on-site) and Andrea Haase (online), from BfR, gave a training on the integration of nano-related data, linking SOPs via instance maps to electronic data management systems, together with partners of other NMBP-16 projects

Additionally, HARMLESS partners were chairing some of the sessions in the conference: Tobias Stöger, from HMGU, chaired the session “Hazard, Exposure and SSbD” on June 21^st and June 22^nd , and Ulla Vogel, from NFA, chaired the EU-US nanoEHS COR session on “Risk Management and Control” on June 23^rd.

Furthermore, on June 20th, the three NMBP-16 projects (DIAGONAL, HARMLESS, SUNSHINE) held a NMBP-16 Ambassadors meeting in a hybrid format, as reported here, where we were able to get to know each other for the first time in person, align our work, exchange information with each other and define the future interactions between the three projects.

It was a great opportunity to meet the project partners, to better get to know each other, to have offline discussions on the upcoming developments, and to interact with the nanosafety community on different topics!

Some impressions from the NanoWeek: