Dovepress Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, and the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering.70 The registry has developed a prototype database and user interface and initial datasets are being curated.71 A related important issue is that of equivalency – that is, the determination of whether two nanomaterials are essentially the same. In all the –omics fields, the need to transfer basic research from the lab to the bedside is a fundamental challenge. The American Medical Informatics Association sponsors the American Medical Informatics Association Summit on Translational Bioinformatics, which aims to translate the latest basic research results in the –omics areas into new knowledge for personalized medicine.72 We have also suggested a new subfield, which we called “translational nanoinformatics,”24 aimed at translating basic nano-level research into clinical applications.73 In this context, research results – and side effects, such as nanotoxicity, which is a major clinical concern – can help develop insights into how in vitro and model results can be transferred to clinical situations and practice. To achieve such ambitious goals, professionals will need to draw on organized international networks of research- ers, projects, and laboratories. These networks would enable people with related objectives to exchange data and resources and to establish collaborative initiatives. Broader and stronger collaborations between researchers worldwide will stimulate synergies that can accelerate research and help minimize nonproductive duplication of efforts (and pos- sibly funding). Human and other genomic, proteomic, and metabolomic projects have provided telling examples of the advantages of openly sharing data and software resources. Such open strategies need to be considered, with appropri- ate adaptations for nanotechnology and nanomedicine – for instance, to accommodate proprietary issues associated with engineered nanoparticle design, production, and use. Challenges for informatics in nanomedicine As suggested previously, due to lack of information, the major research challenges and requirements include: • new reference nanomaterials • improved nanomaterial characterization as reported in the literature and in databases • determination of the sensitivity of the analytical methods to variations in experiments, materials, and methodologi- cal approaches • quantifying the error and uncertainty in the methods and protocols used to produce the data • evaluation and management of various types of risks.74,75 International Journal of Nanomedicine 2012:7 Nanoinformatics: a new area of research in nanomedicine One of the earliest papers (2004) using the term “nanoinformatics,” had already pointed out some of the challenges that this area should address.76 Bioinformatics had evolved to solve problems related to data management in topics such as gel electrophoresis, amino acid sequencing, polymerase chain reaction, and gene mapping techniques.77 Meanwhile, nanoinformatics needed to address two main issues: (1) data results from nano-level experimentation, which lead to large and constantly changing sets of vari- ables due to the continual growth of scientific knowledge; and (2) the need for control of the systems themselves. Further, the elements that the researcher aimed to manipu- late dramatically increased the complexity of the research equipment itself and the refinement of the experiments. All of these required the processing and analysis of mas- sive datasets, with complex calculations needed to manage computerized models at the atomic, molecular, and nano levels. The subsequent development of ever-increasing applications of nanotechnology and nanomedicine has uncovered many different problems that benefit from or require nanoinformatics techniques. Various US agencies have already formulated recommen- dations for nanoinformatics. For instance, the Presidential Council of Advisors on Science and Technology provided a key recommendation in 2010 about nanoinformatics: “Support wide distribution and availability of new non-proprietary information about the properties of nanomaterials.”78 Later, a group of scholars issued a roadmap identifying various chal- lenges and proposing a research and development agenda.79 Similarly, the European Commission funded a support action called ACTION-Grid. ACTION-Grid, comprising groups of scholars from Europe, the USA, Latin America, and Africa, produced a white paper identifying the connections between BMI, grid computing, and nanoinformatics.80 Several of the authors of this paper participated in all three initiatives men- tioned. A fourth document has been recently released entitled A Research Strategy for Environmental, Health, and Safety Aspects of Engineered Nanomaterials, by the Committee to Develop a Research Strategy for Environmental, Health, and Safety Aspects of Engineered Nanomaterials of the National Research Council.81 The main challenges proposed by the latter three of these groups79–81 are shown in Table 1. Successful implementation of informatics strategies – including ontologies, data sharing, and model development – requires appropriately annotated and curated datasets. As can be determined from these four reports, nanoinformatics, in contrast with the more developed field of bioinformatics, submit your manuscript | www.dovepress.com Dovepress 3871