Nanotoxicology
Gregor Wolbring
February 28th 2008
I covered some what I see as the start of the nanotoxicology debate in my recent column Nano-cosmetics, sunscreen and personal care . There I observed that “the Nanoparticle toxicology debate appears to have started with sunscreen. The nanoformulated titanium dioxide available in sunscreens captured the attention of NGO’s and led to a number of significant questions being raised.” I emphasized in that column that the investigation of the toxicology of nano particles is not new but that the term used in earlier investigations was not "nanoparticles" but "ultrafine particles." I listed some ultrafine particle toxicology research papers in that column. The column presented here covers the field of nanotoxicology and its future in more detail. I will cover the broader Environment, Health and Safety of Nanotech in a future column.
A number of review article and bibliographies on nanotoxicology that are worth reading are online (1-11). Some are free. The Journal Particle and Fibre Toxicology is an open access journal with many articles on the biological effects of Nanoparticle. A non open access journal is the journal Nanotoxicology. A paper which summarizes some Risk Asessment Studies of Nanomaterials in Japan and Other Countries can be found here. The fact that Nanotoxicology is an important agenda for many people is seen in the many conferences and forums that focus on this topic. The 1st Nobel Forum mini-symposium on nanotoxicology was held 2007 in Stockholm, Sweden (12). An International Conference on Nanomaterial Toxicology organized at Lucknow by Industrial Toxicology Research Centre and Indian Nanoscience Society ICONTOX 2008, took place in Lucknow, India, February 5-7, 2008 (13).The 2nd International Conference on Nanotoxicology will take place in Switzerland on 7-10, September 2008. The Nanorisk Conference , which will take place in October in Paris France, will among others look at the methodologies used to estimate toxicity.
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