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Abstract
Nanotechnology has grown from a scientific interest to a major industry with both
commodity and specialty nanomaterial exposure to global populations and ecosystems.
Sub-micron materials are currently used in a wide variety of consumer products and
in clinical trials as drug delivery carriers and imaging agents. Due to the expected
growth in this field and the increasing public exposure to nanomaterials, both from
intentional administration and inadvertent contact, improved characterization and
reliable toxicity screening tools are required for new and existing nanomaterials.
This review discusses current methodologies used to assess nanomaterial physicochemical
properties and their in vitro effects. Current methods lack the desired sensitivity,
reliability, correlation and sophistication to provide more than limited, often equivocal,
pieces of the overall nanomaterial performance parameter space, particularly in realistic
physiological or environmental models containing cells, proteins and solutes. Therefore,
improved physicochemical nanomaterial assays are needed to provide accurate exposure
risk assessments and genuine predictions of in vivo behavior and therapeutic value.
Simpler model nanomaterial systems in buffer do not accurately duplicate this complexity
or predict in vivo behavior. A diverse portfolio of complementary material characterization
tools and bioassays are required to validate nanomaterial properties in physiology.