Maojo et al Table 2 (Continued) Nanoinformatics events and activities Final specification of the nano-TAB standard Nanoinformatics 2011, Arlington, VA National Research Council A Research Strategy for Environmental, Health, and Safety Aspects of Engineered Nanomaterials released.81 Launch of the ISA-TAB-Nano (first version), general purpose framework that provides a standard means to communicate data on nanomaterial properties and experiments. Nano working Group, National Cancer Institute European Summit for Clinical Nanomedicine 2012. Basel, Switzerland Future events 6th Concertation and Consultation workshop on Micro-Nano-Bio-Convergence Systems 2012. Athens, Greece. European Commission Nanofair 2012 – 9th International Nanotechnology Symposium. Dresden, Germany 8th NanoBio-Europe conference. Varese, Italy NanoTech Conference and Expo 2012. Santa Clara, CA 9th International Conference on Nanosciences and Nanotechnologies (NN12). Thessaloniki, Greece International Conference on Nanoscience + Technology (ICN+T2012). Paris, France Nanoinformatics 2012 Dovepress Date November 2011 December 2011 January 2012 April 2012 May 2012 June 2012 July 2012 To be determined anatomical structure. Figure 2 shows a screenshot of the pro- the scientific literature. The targeted entities belong to four totype of this engine, the Nanoparticles Toxicity Searcher, that different categories: nanoparticles, routes of exposure, we have developed. If the user is interested in discovering the toxic effects, and potential targets. The entity recognizer toxic effects of QDs in cells as reported in the literature, they was trained using a text corpus that we specifically created would type the keywords “quantum dots” and “cell” in the for this purpose and was validated by two nanomedicine/ boxes labeled “Nanoparticle” and “Target.” Then, they would nanotoxicology experts. The text corpus is composed of click the “Search” button, and the system would automatically around 300 sentences manually extracted from papers retrieve all papers indexed by these keywords, as shown in the available and indexed in PubMed, which were anno- figure. The abstract and/or the full text of the articles can then tated with relevant nanotoxicology entities. This kind of be easily retrieved by clicking their corresponding PubMed research can serve as a basis to stimulate further research identifiers or PMID hyperlinks, as shown. on information retrieval and text mining – for example, Second, we have automated the recognition and extrac- for nanotoxicological purposes – as has occurred in areas tion of mentions of nanotoxicology-related entities from such as BMI. 2007 caNanoLab NanoMedNet NanoImpactNet NanoHub NanoSafe 2008 NanoInformatics workshop Research challenges for nanomanufacturing ACTION-Grid NSTI GoodNanoGuide 1D Heterostructure tool NanoParticleOntology 2009 Nano ontologies in cancer caBIG IANH at NanoTox NSTI Minimum standards and nanotech Informatics and nanotechnology informatics caBIG 2010 IMIA Report nano-TAB CSN Nano-portal NSF DNA comp ACTION- Grid WP NNI SIG N2020 PCAST report NSTI Anaheim QNano 2011 - NNN Roadmap - MNBS 2011 NNI strategic plan - Europe tech platform - Nanoinformatics 2010 - Nanoinformatics review - Washington summit - UMass - ICON - NSF Needs 2020 nano-TAB standard ISA-TAB-Nano 2012 Report NRC European summit CLINAM Wiley informatics and standards Nanoinformatics 2011 - Biol.Res. - MGI - NanoTech Boston - MNBS 2012 - NanoFair - NanoTech SantaClara - NNI2 - ICN+T2012 - Nanoinformatics 2012 Figure 3 Timeline of events and activities depicted in Table 2. Abbreviations: Biol Res, Biological Research; CSN, Collaboratory for Structural Nanobiology; IANH, International Alliance for NanoEHS Harmonization; ICON, International Council on Nanotechnology; ICN, International Conference on Nanoscience; MNBS, Micro-Nano-Bio Systems; NNI, National Nanotechnology Initiative; NNN, National Nanomanufacturing Network; NRC, National Research Council; NSTI, Nano Science and Technology Institute; NSF, National Science Foundation; PCAST, President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology. 3880 submit your manuscript | www.dovepress.com Dovepress International Journal of Nanomedicine 2012:7