caNanoLab Overview

caNanoLab Portal

The cancer Nanotechnology Laboratory portal (caNanoLab) is a web-based portal designed to facilitate data sharing in the research community to expedite and validate the use of nanomaterials in biomedicine. caNanoLab provides support for the annotation of nanomaterials with characterizations resulting from physico-chemical and in vitro nanomaterial assays and the sharing of these characterizations and associated nanotechnology protocols in a secure fashion.

caNanoLab is a collaboration between the NCI Center for Biomedical Informatics and Information Technology (CBIIT), the NCI Nanotechnology Characterization Laboratory (NCL), and the NCI Cancer Centers of Nanotechnology Excellence (CCNEs). CCNEs actively involved in the caNanoLab effort include Washington University, Stanford, Emory/Georgia Tech, and MIT.

caNanoLab and Standards Development

The caNanoLab project is actively involved in a variety of efforts supporting the development of standards for representing nanomaterials and their characterizations as applied to the field of nanomedicine. The caNanoLab project participates in the caBIG® Integrative Cancer Research (ICR) Nanotechnology Working Group (Nano WG) which is chartered to integrate nanotechnology information and tools to aid discovery and clinical translation in the cancer research community leveraging caBIG infrastructure components. The primary objectives of the caBIG ICR Nano WG are to:

• Define and prioritize development and governance needs for the cancer nanotechnology ontology
• Adopt and collect data sharing standards and protocols for cancer nanotechnology data
• Develop a vision for nanoinformatics enabling information exchange with nanotechnology resources using

The caNanoLab project participates in working group objectives by assisting in the development of nanotechnology standards and the application of these standards in the caNanoLab nanotechnology resource. Information on caBIG ICR Nano WG standards leveraged by caNanoLab are provided in the subsections below.

Nanotechnology Data Sharing Standards

caNanoLab Users Group

caNanoLab is currently deployed at the NCL, Washington University, Stanford, and George Tech. Future caNanoLab feature requests are obtained by working with the nanotechnology community through the caNanoLab Users Group and the caBIG Integrative Cancer Research (ICR) Nanotechnology (Nano) Working Group. The caBIG ICR Nano Working group is aimed at developing a vision for nanoinformatics and is composed of members from the NCL, CCNEs, and other members of the nanoinformatics community.

caNanoLab Users Group meetings occur the 3rd Friday of every month from 1:30PM-2:30PM EST. caNanoLab Users Group Presentations are available on the caNanoLab Project Site. To become a caNanoLab Users Group member, please subscribe via the caNanoLab Users Listserv.

Data Curation

Data curation is a key component for ensuring that data is appropriately annotated to facilitate data sharing in a semantically interoperable fashion. Data curation activities on caNanoLab are currently performed by nanotechnology data scientists at Washington University and the Nanotechnology Characterization Laboratory (NCL). Data curators assist in extracting data from publications and nanotechnology experiments, annotating extracted data, and providing overall data quality control. If you are interested in depositing your data into caNanoLab, please contact Washington University (Nathan Baker).

Using the caNanoLab Wiki

This is the wiki home page of caNanoLab. Collaborators may edit this page and add more pages. If you can see the link at the bottom of the page, you may add comments.