Toxicology for Nanotechnology

Due to their excellent properties, nanomaterials have been used in numerous fields. With increasing production and usage, it has been a frequent occurrence for human exposure to nanomaterials during their life cycle, which attract a great attention on the biosafety of nanomaterials. The adverse effects of nanomaterials are high dependent on the exposure routes and biological processes (absorption, distribution, metabolism, and excretion, termed as ADME), especially metabolism and transport, that determine the bioavailability and actual accumulation in living organism. To evaluate their biosafety, it is indispensable as an important step to characterize the biological processes and actual dose in target organ/tissues by quantitative or qualitative methods. In addition, it is essential to identify the key factors influencing the toxic effects of nanomaterials. Given these facts, this chapter provides current research on the exposure routes and resulting adverse outcomes of nanomaterials, and biological processes of nanomaterials in vivo. Highly sensitive and high-resolution analytic methods for characterizing these processes of nanomaterials are described. Importantly, the key factors influencing biological/adverse effects are also summarized.