Seven years in, the Malta Initiative has released its first Priority List, giving scientists, funders, and regulators a shared roadmap for the nano and advanced materials safety tests that are still missing.
Without these tests, innovations in advanced materials face a compliance deadlock, and the Priority List is explicitly designed to break that logjam by directing effort where it is most urgently needed.
The NIA helped shape the list from the inside, ensuring that the gap between what industry needs to bring products to market and what regulators can actually test for is front and centre.
Ensuring OECD Guidelines for nano and advanced material
Dr. Blanca Suarez-Merino
3 min read
Summary
Since its inception in 2017, the Mata Initiative has focused on revising OECD Test Guidelines (TG) and Guidance Documents (GD) to make them suitable for nano and advanced materials. These guidelines are crucial for both the industry and regulatory bodies in the assessment and testing of chemicals, playing a key role in the effective implementation of legislation.
In March 2024 the Malta Initiative released its Malta Initiative Priority List. This will help ensure that the harmonised methods that are required in the near future for nano and other advanced materials will be available. Ensuring that innovations in materials can come to the market and comply with regulations requires collaboration between experts from science, industry and authorities to set priorities for which test methods are required.
