Should Experimental Chemists Be Doing More to Help Evaluate the Toxicological Potential of Nanoparticles?

Abstract

More general testing of nanoparticles (NP) for properties that are amenable towards biological activity, and thus potentially conducive to nanotoxicity, should be conducted on a broader scale by experimental chemists to help assess the pernicious threat that NP may present to human health or to the environment. For example, evaluation by measuring NP-biomolecule bioaffinity using techniques such as mass spectrometry (MS) and nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) is advocated, thereby echoing a similar call to computational and theoretical chemists to expand their studies and make at least part of their work, where feasible, relevant to nanotoxicity.