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This chapter provides the most contemporary overview possible of synthesis,
properties, and potential biomedical applications of CNTs through recent
examples. The exceptional physical, mechanical, and electronic properties of
CNTs allow them to be used in sensors, probes, actuators, nano-electronic devices,
and drug delivery systems within biomedical applications. With the increasing
interest shown by the nanotechnology research community in this field, it is
expected that plenty of applications of CNTs will be explored in future. At the
same time, it is believed that the continued development and application of CNTs
can enhance the practice of biomedical industries. However, amidst all the hope
and hype, CNTs have yet to cross many technological hurdles in order to fulfill
their potential as the most preferred material for biomedical applications. Hope-
fully, the descriptions provided and references to the literature therein will allow
researchers to develop new applications besides proposing improvement in the
current application areas. Almost certainly many unanticipated applications for
this remarkable material will come to light in the years ahead and may prove to be
the most important and valuable of all.
Carbon nanotubes, a form of carbon that did not exist in our environment
before being manufactured, possess unique chemical, physical, optical, and
magnetic properties, which make them suitable for many uses in industrial
products and in the field of nanotechnology, including nanomedicine. Hence, it
is of the uttermost importance to explore the yet almost unknown issue of the
toxicity of this new material. The control of the nanotube morphology and the
bead size, coupled with the versatility of silica chemistry, makes these structures an
excellent platform for the development of biosensors (optical, magnetic and
catalytic applications). When comparing the toxicity of pristine and oxidized
multiwalled carbon nanotubes on human T cells-which would be among the first
exposed cell types upon intravenous administration of carbon nanotubes in
therapeutic and diagnostic nanodevices-results suggest that carbon nanotubes
indeed can be very toxic and induce massive loss of cell viability through
programmed cell death at sufficiently high concentrations (
1 ng/cell). The
cytotoxicity of carbon nanotubes does depend on many other factors than
concentration, including their physical form, diameter, length, and the nature of
attached molecules or nanomaterials. Carbon black, for instance, is less toxic than
pristine CNTs (which shows the relevance of structure and topology); oxidized
CNTs are more toxic than pristine CNTs. We conclude that careful toxicity
studies need to be undertaken particularly in conjunction with nanomedical
applications of carbon nanotubes.
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REFERENCES
1. E. Bekyarova, et al. Applications of carbon nanotubes in biotechnology and
biomedicine. Journal of Biomedical Nanotechnology, 1: pp 3-17, 2005.
2. G. E. Park and T. J. Webster. A review of nanotechnology for the development of
better orthopedic implants. Journal of Biomedical Nanotechnology, 1: pp 18-29, 2005.
 
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