The New Toxicology of Sophisticated Materials: Nanotoxicology and Beyond

This article discusses the rise of the fiend of nanotoxicology, which highlights the importance of material physicochemical properties in how dose is understood, how materials are characterized in a manner that enables quantitative data interpretation and comparison, and how materials move within, interact with and are transformed by biological systems. The authors discuss how in the near future there will be a need to understand the toxicology of increasingly complex materials that exhibit novel, dynamic and multifaceted functionality, and that the field of toxicology will have to move toward a new toxicology of sophisticated materials if we are to ensure the safe use of a new generation of substances.