page_title: Nanoinformatics
section_title: Background
hierarchical_section_title: Nanoinformatics / Background
caption_attribution_description: English: This graphic illustrates that the working definition of the nanoinformatics life cycle comprises: Determining which information is relevant to meeting the safety, health, well-being, and productivity objectives of the nanoscale science, engineering, and technology community; Developing and implementing effective mechanisms for collecting, validating, storing, sharing, analyzing, modeling, and applying the information; Confirming that appropriate decisions were made and that desired mission outcomes were achieved as a result of that information; and, finally, Conveying experience to the broader community, contributing to generalized knowledge, and updating standards and training.
context_page_description: Nanoinformatics is the application of informatics to nanotechnology. It is an interdisciplinary field that develops methods and software tools for understanding nanomaterials, their properties, and their interactions with biological entities, and using that information more efficiently. It differs from cheminformatics in that nanomaterials usually involve nonuniform collections of particles that have distributions of physical properties that must be specified. The nanoinformatics infrastructure includes ontologies for nanomaterials, file formats, and data repositories.
  Nanoinformatics has applications for improving workflows in fundamental research, manufacturing, and environmental health, allowing the use of high-throughput data-driven methods to analyze broad sets of experimental results. Nanomedicine applications include analysis of nanoparticle-based pharmaceuticals for structure–activity relationships in a similar manner to bioinformatics.
context_section_description: While conventional chemicals are specified by their chemical composition, and concentration, nanoparticles have other physical properties that must be measured for a complete description, such as size, shape, surface properties, crystallinity, and dispersion state.  In addition, preparations of nanoparticles are often non-uniform, having distributions of these properties that must also be specified.  These molecular-scale properties influence their macroscopic chemical and physical properties, as well as their biological effects.  They are important in both the experimental characterization of nanoparticles and their representation in an informatics system. The context of nanoinformatics is that effective development and implementation of potential applications of nanotechnology requires the harnessing of information at the intersection of safety, health, well-being, and productivity; risk management; and emerging nanotechnology.
  One working definition of nanoinformatics developed through the community-based Nanoinformatics 2020 Roadmap and subsequently expanded is:
  Determining which information is relevant to meeting the safety, health, well-being, and productivity objectives of the nanoscale science, engineering, and technology community;
  Developing and implementing effective mechanisms for collecting, validating, storing, sharing, analyzing, modeling, and applying the information;
  Confirming that appropriate decisions were made and that desired mission outcomes were achieved as a result of that information; and finally
  Conveying experience to the broader community, contributing to generalized knowledge, and updating standards and training.
caption: A graphical representation of a working definition of nanoinformatics as a life-cycle process
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