The health risks of nanotechnology
Posted: Thu Mar 25, 2010 1:34 pm
Here's an interesting article on the health risks of nanotechnology.
Amid Nanotech's Dazzling Promise, Health Risks Grow
Amid Nanotech's Dazzling Promise, Health Risks Grow
The article continues at <link>. Parts 2 & 3 of this series on nanotechnology can be found at <link>.For almost two years, molecular biologist Bénédicte Trouiller doused the drinking water of scores of lab mice with nano-titanium dioxide, the most common nanomaterial used in consumer products today.
She knew that earlier studies conducted in test tubes and petri dishes had shown the same particle could cause disease. But her tests at a lab at UCLA's School of Public Health were in vivo -- conducted in living organisms -- and thus regarded by some scientists as more relevant in assessing potential human harm.
Halfway through, Trouiller became alarmed: Consuming the nano-titanium dioxide was damaging or destroying the animals' DNA and chromosomes. The biological havoc continued as she repeated the studies again and again. It was a significant finding: The degrees of DNA damage and genetic instability that the 32-year-old investigator documented can be "linked to all the big killers of man, namely cancer, heart disease, neurological disease and aging," says Professor Robert Schiestl, a genetic toxicologist who ran the lab at UCLA's School of Public Health where Trouiller did her research.