Health Canada is the Federal department responsible for helping Canadians maintain and improve their health. Health Canada relies on high quality scientific research to achieve its goals. Among the others, Health Canada promotes innovation and best practices across Canada, and regulates food, health and consumer products, and sets national standards to keep Canadians safe. It has more than 9,000 employees all across Canada.
Environmental Health Science and Research Bureau is one of the bureaus under the Healthy Environments and Consumer Safety Branch of Health Canada. The mandate of this bureau is to reduce the negative impacts of environmental exposures on the health of Canadians through research, surveillance, monitoring, epidemiological investigations and emergency planning. In the field of nanomaterials, Health Canada has its own policy statement concerning the working definition of nanomaterials, and collaborates with national and international partners to conduct research on safety of nanomaterials. The research objectives range from the investigation of underlying mechanisms of toxicity induced by nanomaterials to hazard ranking and human health risk assessment using systems biology approaches. Health Canada researchers are actively involved in OECD, WHO and ISO international activities focused on harmonization, setting standards and developing guidance documents concerning nanosafety assessments.