Driving Beyond Our Nano-Headlights?
Nanotechnology has enormous potential to benefit all society and most sectors of the economy. Nanomaterials are used in products ranging from self-cleaning windows to antimicrobial socks and structural composites. Nanomaterial-enabled products are entering consumer use at the rate of three to four per week. The fast-track evolution—from the discovery of buckyballs in 1985 to the hundreds of nanoparticles used in today's products—presents serious questions about the accumulation and persistence of nanomaterials in the environment and humans. Like many quickly adopted technologies, nanomaterials' long-term effects—unintended and anticipated—are not well understood and not predictable, given their unique properties. This seminar session explores where the science of nanotoxicology is heading, the scientific challenges in understanding and predicting long-term nanoparticle effects, some successful and not-so-successful approaches to nanotoxicological research, and the policy framework required to facilitate and not hinder achieving the enormous potential of this burgeoning field.
Saturday, February 14, 2009
8:30 - 11:30 AM
Hyatt Regency Chicago
Room: Crystal B
Present and Future Directions of Nanotechnology
Travis M. Earles
National Science and Technology Council
Travis Earles will describe the future applications, role and societal and economic impact of nanotechnology. The presentation will include the evolution of nanotechnology with a five- and ten-year horizon. He will emphasize those materials and technologies that may carry the most potential risk.
Nanomaterials in Human and Ecosystem Health
Sally Tinkle
National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences
Dr. Tinkle will describe the current state of understanding of nanomaterials in the human and ecosystems. She will emphasize the science and technology challenges to identify and predict human populations and ecosystems at risk for nanomaterial exposure to nanomaterials and unintended consequences. She will also introduce the audience to the NNI Multiagency ESH roadmap.
Nanomedicine and Nanobiology at the Nanobio Interface
Agnes Kane
Pathology & Laboratory Medicine, Brown University Medical School
Nanotechnology has been described as the next industrial revolution. Approximately 600 commercial nanoproducts are already on the market. Many more novel applications are anticipated in electronics, energy, nanoengineered devices, environmental remediation, and nanomedicine. Nanomaterials are defined as engineered materials with at least one dimension in the range of 1-100nm. Engineered nanomaterials have unique chemical and physical properties compared with micron-sized or bulk materials. Some nanomaterials have been shown to have highly reactive surfaces that may induce toxicity upon interaction with biological systems; however, predicting the exact properties of these materials that may be linked with adverse environmental and human health impacts is technically challenging. Novel synthesis and characterization methods were used to carry out systematic studies that reveal the chemical and structural basis of carbon nanomaterial toxicity. Identification of specific chemical and physical properties of nanomaterials responsible for cellular toxicity will enable development of manufacturing methods and post processing steps to eliminate intrinsic toxicity.
Systems Toxicology of Engineered Nanomaterials
Brian Thrall
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Dr. Thall will describe the systems toxicology approach to identifying biological activity of nanomaterials. He will present research results describing the quantitative and systems toxicology approach to defining the fate of nanomaterials and biological response at the cellular and molecular level. His presentation will also feature computational approaches to describe the cellular deposition and fate of nanomaterials.
BionanoInteractions—A Rational Approach to the Interaction between Nanoscale Materials and Living Matter
Kenneth Dawson
University College Dublin
Co-Authors: Iseult Lynch, Centre for BionanoInteractions, University College Dublin; Anna Salvati, Centre for BionanoInteractions, University College Dublin.
We are at the dawn of a new interdisciplinary science - bionanointeractions - that crosses the traditional barriers of chemistry, physics, molecular and cell biology, biomedicine, engineering, and toxicology. Bionanointeraction science will likely lead to a truly integrated understanding of how engineered nanoscale objects act upon living organisms, and form the future basis of nanomedicine, nanodiagnostics and nanotoxicology. Thus, when particles are sufficiently small (a million times smaller than a millimetre) they can access all parts of the human body, as well as entering biological cells. This means they have potential to deliver medicines that can, in the future, diagnose and cure some of the most challenging diseases, including viral, cancer, and genetic disorders. This thinking is the basis of nanomedicine and nanodiagnostics.
These very small particles will also lead to faster computers, better telecommunications, energy conserving devices, and much more. A major effort is now underway across the world to ensure that these technologies can be introduced safely into industry, and this effort is often called nanotoxicity. The Centre for BioNano Interactions (CBNI) in Ireland is playing a leading role.
The importance of understanding the interactions between nanoscale materials and living matter has now been appreciated by an extraordinarily range of stakeholders. As the potential to manipulate materials at nanometer scale grows, it leads to the opportunity to stipulate and study specific interactions with cells, tissue, organs, and whole organisms. Not only does it open up new direction in nanomedicine and nanodiagnostics, but offers the chance to implement nanotechnology across all industry in a safe and responsible manner.
The underlying reasons are real: Less than 100 nm nanoparticles can enter cells, less that 40 nm particles can enter the cell nucleus, and less that 35 nm particles can pass the blood brain barrier. These are fundamental length-scales of biological relevance that ensure engineered nanoscience will impinge on biology and medicine for many decades.
One important issue in the study of nanoparticle uptake by living cells is the current lack of reproducibility on the outcomes of many experiments in this arena. Differences are likely a consequence of such things as uncontrolled aggregation and uncontrolled cell confluency, leading to irreproducible doses being delivered to cells. However, with careful application of robust protocols, it is possible to perform quantitatively reproducible nanoparticle uptake experiments and to get excellent agreement between a range of different techniques, including flow cytometry and confocal microscopy.
Another concept that has emerged in from CBNI is the idea that nanoparticles in a biologically relevant environment, such as cell media and plasma, draw to themselves a number of proteins and lipids that form a sort of dynamical 'corona' in slow exchange with the environment. The exchange times of the 'hard corona' can be so slow that many early biological responses are already defined by these associated biomolecules. It is therefore these biomolecules that define the biological identity of the nanoparticle, and it is important to learn their identity and more broadly to develop methods to assess them.
A key achievement of the field would then be to connect this biological identity (the corona) to the observed biological impact. This has not been achieved yet, but progress is being made. We also note the surprising feature that nanoparticles are sometimes able to induce dramatic effects on protein interactions, such as the case for protein fibrillation, and of course this observation, when combined with the potential for nanoparticles to transport to the brain implies the need to study this whole arena in more depth in future.
Regulatory Challenges for Nanomaterials in Public Health
Norris E. Alderson
Food and Drug Administration
Dr. Alderson will present the current state of federal regulation of nanomaterials in the human and ecosystem environment. He will then focus on the legal challenges and scientific information required to provide the regulatory environment too effectively and appropriately support achieving the benefits of nanotechnology.