The Engineer has an interview with Kevin Matthews, CEO of Oxonica, and gives a nice potted history of the company. Naturally the issue of safety emerges, especially as the company is involved with the application of nanoparticles in cosmetics, in this case sunscreen.
Matthews voices a fear prevalent across nanotechnologies, that a few rogue results could result in serious damage. He cites the recent case in the UK of public concerns about links between the MMR vaccine (Measles Mumps & Rubella) that was wrongly linked with autism and resulted in parents refusing to have their children vaccinated.
While erring on the side of caution is something that most companies already do routinely -no one wants a class action suit against them – Matthews reveals that Oxonica went ” beyond what the regulations require” when studying the environmental effects of their fuel additive.
This is a good strategy. Although there are a huge number of toxicology initiatives worldwide, the results will take time both to be generated, and more importantly confirmed. While the scientific community is not prone to leaping to global conclusions as the result of a single experiment, the press, and pressure groups sometimes are. Fortunate we are now seeing more granularity in the nanotech world, although the majority of commentators still lump all things ‘nano’ together. The result of this is a perceived link between the toxicity of one nanomaterial and another, when in fact titanium dioxide and carbon nanotubes are chemically, physically and from toxicological viewpoint quite distinct.
Over the past few years we have seen all manner of studies into the toxicity of nanomaterials, showing them to be everywhere between deadly and beneficial depending on type, dose, volume, weight, surface area or phase of the moon. What we do not have is a general consensus or a standardised methodology â something addressed recently by the article in Particle and Fibre Toxicology â and until we do, public perception may continue to be as volatile as some of the small cap nanotech stocks.