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Research advances on nanotech workplace health and safety

"Companies, workers and investors alike are being challenged by the uncertainties surrounding nanotechnology workplace safety. These uncertainties include lack of sound, scientific information on occupational risks, poorly determined perceptual risks, and hesitancy over nanotechnology oversight," according to co-authors Andrew Maynard and David Y.H. Pui in an article in the latest issue of the Journal of Nanoparticle Research. This is a special journal issue devoted to nanoparticles and occupational health.

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Keywords: research, advances, nanotech, workplace, health, safety, advance

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1. Nanotech safety needs specific government risk research strategy and funding
   01-04-2007 · EurekAlert!
   "Prioritizing nanotechnology risk research isn't rocket science," said Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies chief scientist Andrew Maynard. Dr. Maynard's remark is in his testimony today before the federal government's first public meeting focused exclusively on research needs and priorities for the environmental, health and safety risks of engineered nanoscale materials.
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2. Federal research plan to determine nanotech risks fails to deliver
   09-13-2007 · EurekAlert!
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3. 'Chlamy' genome holds clues for renewable energy, the environment and human health
   10-11-2007 · EurekAlert!
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4. Unanticipated consequences of health-care information technology
   09-18-2007 · EurekAlert!
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5. Not so contoversial anymore -- panel says moderate coffee drinking reduces many risks
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6. New research review shows that your family doctor may be the key to quitting smoking
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7. Workplace Center publishes elder care handbook
   02-09-2007 · Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
   The MIT Workplace Center's latest research on the geriatric health care system in the Greater Boston area has concluded that families are playing an increasingly important role in the care of elders.
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8. Strategy for nanotechnology-related environmental, health and safety research
   02-14-2008 · EurekAlert!
   The Nanoscale Science, Engineering, and Technology Subcommittee of the National Science and Technology Council's Committee on Technology today released a document describing the National Nanotechnology Initiative's strategy for addressing priority research on the environment, health and safety aspects of nanomaterials.
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9. Personal safety concerns could thwart exercise targets for the poor
   10-22-2007 · EurekAlert!
   Exercise is strongly promoted for the maintenance of good health -- particularly as regards people on lower incomes, who are generally less physically active. However, new research published in PLoS Medicine suggests that one barrier to physical activity in low-income areas may be that people do not consider their environment safe enough to allow them to walk, cycle or take other forms of outdoor exercise.
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10. Advance in understanding of blood pressure gene could lead to new treatments
    02-04-2007 · EurekAlert!
    Research by scientists at UCL (University College London) has clearly demonstrated for the first time the structure and function of a gene crucial to the regulation of blood pressure. The discovery could be important in the search for new treatments for illnesses such as heart disease, the UK's biggest killer. In a paper published online today in Nature Medicine, the team, led by Professor Patrick Vallance and Dr James Leiper, UCL Department of Medicine, reveal the role of the human gene dimethylarginine dimethylaminohydrolase (DDAH), showing that loss of DDAH activity disrupts nitric oxide (NO) production. NO is critical in the regulation of blood pressure, nervous system functions and the immune system. The role of DDAH is to break down modified amino acids (Asymmetric dimethylarginine (ADMA) and monomethyl arginine (L-NMMA)) that are produced by the body and have been shown to inhibit NO synthase. These molecules accumulate in various disease states including diabetes, renal failure and pulmonary and systemic hypertension, and their concentration in plasma (the fluid component of blood) is strongly predicative of cardiovascular disease and death. In a healthy human body, the majority of ADMA is eliminated through active metabolism by DDAH. Scientists have hypothesised that if DDAH function is impaired, NO production is reduced, and that this could be an important feature of increased cardiovascular risk. To examine this pathway in more detail, the researchers deleted the DDAH gene in mice. These mice went on to develop hypertension, or high blood pressure. They also designed specific inhibitors (small molecules) which bind to the active site of human DDAH. These small molecule inhibitors also induced hypertension in mice, confirming the importance of DDAH in the regulation of blood pressure. Dr Leiper, UCL Medicine, said: “These genetic and chemical approaches to disrupt DDAH showed remarkably consistent results, and provide compelling evidence that loss of DDAH function increases the concentration of ADMA and thereby disrupts vascular NO signalling. “There has been considerable scientific interest in this pathway and the role of ADMA as a novel risk factor, but so far there's been little evidence to support the idea that it's a cause of disease, rather than just a marker. Genes and their pathways are crucial to our understanding of cardiovascular disease and a better understanding of DDAH-1 could lead to important new treatments. “It could help us to establish if genetic variation predisposes certain people to these diseases, or whether environmental factors exert some of their effects through modulation of DDAH activity. “Our research also shows that this pathway could be harnessed therapeutically to limit production of NO in certain situations where too much nitric oxide is a bad thing; for example, hypotension and septic shock. These are some of the biggest problems in intensive care medicine and there is a huge unmet need for drug treatments.” The study, which was carried out at UCL's Rayne Institute, was funded by grants from the British Heart Foundation, the Wellcome Trust and the Medical Research Council. Professor Jeremy Pearson, Associate Medical Director of the British Heart Foundation, said: "The unexpected finding in the 1980s that a simple gas, nitric oxide (NO), is made by cells in the blood vessel wall and is a powerful control of blood vessel relaxation led to the award of the Nobel Prize in 1998 to its discoverers. "More recently, there has been increasing evidence that impairment of NO production is likely to be an important factor in the development of heart and circulatory disease, but the mechanisms responsible are not fully understood. "This study suggests for the first time that the loss of the activity of the enzyme DDAH-1 leads to reduced NO production and may cause heart and circulatory disease. These findings are likely to be important in the search for new ways to optimise the health of our blood vessels." ### Notes for Editors 1. For more information, please contact Ruth Metcalfe in the UCL Media Relations Office on tel: +44 (0)20 7679 9739, mobile: +44 (0)7990 675 947, out of hours: +44 (0)7917 271 364, e-mail: r.metcalfe@ucl.ac.uk2. 'Disruption of methylarginine metabolism impairs vascular homeostasis' is published in the February issue of the journal Nature Medicine. Advance online publication is embargoed to 18.00 GMT (13.00 US Eastern) Sunday 4 February 2007. Journalists can obtain copies of the paper by contacting the UCL Media Relations Office.3. The study was funded by the British Heart Foundation, the Wellcome Trust and the Medical Research Council. About UCL Founded in 1826, UCL was the first English university established after Oxford and Cambridge, the first to admit students regardless of race, class, religion or gender, and the first to provide systematic teaching of law, architecture and medicine. In the government's most recent Research Assessment Exercise, 59 UCL departments achieved top ratings of 5* and 5, indicating research quality of international excellence. UCL is the fourth-ranked UK university in the 2006 league table of the top 500 world universities produced by the Shanghai Jiao Tong University. UCL alumni include Mahatma Gandhi (Laws 1889, Indian political and spiritual leader); Jonathan Dimbleby (Philosophy 1969, writer and television presenter); Junichiro Koizumi (Economics 1969, Prime Minister of Japan); Lord Woolf (Laws 1954, Lord Chief Justice of England & Wales); Alexander Graham Bell (Phonetics 1860s, inventor of the telephone), and members of the band Coldplay.
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