A walk in the PARC:developing and implementing 21st century chemical risk assessment in Europe

Current approaches for the assessment of environmental and human health risks due to exposure to chemical substances have served their purpose reasonably well. Nevertheless, the systems in place for different uses of chemicals are faced with various challenges, ranging from a growing number of chemicals to changes in the types of chemicals and materials produced. This has triggered global awareness of the need for a paradigm shift, which in turn has led to the publication of new concepts for chemical risk assessment and explorations of how to translate these concepts into pragmatic approaches. As a result, next-generation risk assessment (NGRA) is generally seen as the way forward. However, incorporating new scientific insights and innovative approaches into hazard and exposure assessments in such a way that regulatory needs are adequately met has appeared to be challenging. The European Partnership for the Assessment of Risks from Chemicals (PARC) has been designed to address various challenges associated with innovating chemical risk assessment. Its overall goal is to consolidate and strengthen the European research and innovation capacity for chemical risk assessment to protect human health and the environment. With around 200 participating organisations from all over Europe, including three European agencies, and a total budget of over 400 million euro, PARC is one of the largest projects of its kind. It has a duration of seven years and is coordinated by ANSES, the French Agency for Food, Environmental and Occupational Health & Safety

Synergy between medical informatics and bioinformatics: facilitating genomic medicine for future health care

Medical Informatics (MI) and Bioinformatics (BI) are two interdisciplinary areas located at the intersection between computer science and medicine and biology, respectively. Historically, they have been separated and only occasionally have researchers of both disciplines collaborated. The completion of the Human Genome Project has brought about in this post genomic era the need for a synergy of these two disciplines to further advance in the study of diseases by correlating essential genotypic information with expressed phenotypic information. Biomedical Informatics (BMI) is the emerging technology that aims to put these two worlds together in the new rising genomic medicine. In this regard, institutions such as the European Commission have recently launched several initiatives to support a new combined research agenda, based on the potential for synergism of both disciplines. In this paper we review the results the BIOINFOMED study one of these projects funded by the E

Gallium arsenide nanoparticles:Synthesis and characterisation

Gallium arsenide nanoparticles have been prepared from GaCl3 and As(NMe2)3 in 4-ethylpyridine. UV spectra and emission luminescence show strong peaks for samples isolated after short reaction times. Time resolved photoluminescence (TRPL) was carried out using time-correlated single photon counting (TCSPC). The emission observed was confirmed as mainly arising from GaAs dots. Powder XRD data confirm the formation of the cubic GaAs phase. TEM imaging showed monodispersed nanoparticles with sizes ranging from 2 nm (for early aliquots) to 6 nm for later samples after the injection of additional precursor