The recent reports on the toxicity of buckyballs leave us, as ususal, with more questions than answers. It is important to address, study, and explain the results in detail without jumping to conclusions. Our scientific curiosity was piqued in a number of areas.
How exactly were the buckyballs stabilized in the media (water?), because C60 is practically insoluble in water? New Scientist says ‘waterborne fullerenes” while Eureka Alert reports “a form of water soluble C60,” while the Washington Post refers to microscopic, manufactured “nanoparticles”
More importantly, how does the process work? What are the mechanisms of uptake by the body? What are the mechanisms of interaction with the cell surface, interior and the exact effect on the cell.
It is important to understand this, as biochemical processes are significantly dependent on surface chemistry. The outside coating of a chemical or biological entity will determine in most cases how it interacts with living cells. The coating can be as important as the content, sometimes even more. Solubility, size and stability are also other key factors. That’s one of the reasons large pharmaceutical companies spend so much money on the R&D of drug delivery forms, and why nanotechnology is being applied extensively in this area.
While many may be jumping to the immediate conclusion that this is bad news, the preliminary results imply quite an important discovery. Many highly toxic substances can form the basis of drugs that save hundreds of thousands of lives, once the mechanisms of interaction are well known, controlled and used for our benefit. Highly toxic and dangerous compounds are used in many industries and most labs. Taxol for example, derived from Yew Trees forms the basis for many cancer drugs. Hydrofluoric acid is no less useful because it is corrosive, and gasoline, as everyone knows, is extremely flammable. The point is that we know that these substances are dangerous, and take the appropriate precautions.
While organisations such as ETC and the Institute of Nanotechnology may be calling for bans and moratoria on nanomaterials, we, in common with most of industry, are simlply calling for more research leading to better labelling.