National Synchrotron Light Source Lunch Time Seminar

A major contribution to nanotechnology is the controlled synthesis of a large variety of nanomaterials, the basis of future applications. Within the last decades we have seen the rapid development of nanotubes and nanowires, like TiO2 nanofilaments, boron nitride nanotubes (BNNTs), zinc-oxide nanowires and especially that of carbon nanotubes (CNTs). Recently, another family of carbon-based compounds, graphene and its derivatives have received worldwide attention due to its particular electrical, thermal, optical, and mechanical properties. All these structures are very promising for applications and there is a forecasted expansion of their manufacturing which makes likely that human and environmental exposure will exponentially increase in the near future. As a result, there is a growing worry related to their possible health hazards, as some of them strongly resemble to asbestos.
We have studied the toxic effect of CNTs, TiO2, BNNTs and graphene oxide by assessing cell proliferation on several cell-lines and the modification of their metabolism and their morphology. We tried to unravel the role of local catalytic activity, the importance of structural defects, functional groups and the tortuosity of these nanostructures in their alteration of cell proliferation.
Acknowledgement. The study was performed in close collaboration with Beat Schwaller, Arnaud Magrez and László Forró.