RTI International is expanding an online nanomaterial registry that allows anyone to search, brows and compare data on the characteristics of a wide variety of nanomaterials.

The Nanomaterial Registry was created by RTI to serve as comprehensive resource for the nanomaterial community. This Big Data registry of nanomaterial organizes data from a wide array of sources, including researchers and manufacturers, to accelerate discoveries on the benefits as well as the risks of nanomaterials.

“We are approaching 1,000 public data records available on the Nanomaterial Registry’s website, with many more records currently being processed and soon to be added,” Michele Ostraat, senior director of the Center for Aerosol and Nanomaterials Engineering at RTI and the project’s principal investigator said in a statement. “As we continue to add new data records, the utility and impact of these gathered data will increase through their yield of more interesting information from the website’s data matching, comparison and search features.”

RTI launched the Nanomaterial Registry last year. The registry is free and open to the public. The project has been funded with federal funds from the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering, the National Institute of Environmental and Health Sciences, and the National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health and the Department of Health and Human Services.