Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
cussed the importance of not letting the market or industry decide what will
be on the market.
Section IV, titled Bionanotechnology and the Environment , highlighted the
new potential resources' link to nanotechnology and how this new technol-
ogy can improve the quality and remediation capacities. More research on
nanotechnology is needed, but there is definitely potential in this science.
Section V presented observations related to the potential toxicity or the
risk from nanoparticles. The first chapter, on nanotoxicology, reviewed some
technical protocols that are used in in vitro approaches starting from the cell
lines or primary cultures. This chapter also emphasized the importance of
investigating these toxicity mechanisms. The in vitro approach is useful for
comparing different families of nanoparticles because it is a fast and low-
cost method to study preliminary classifications. However, an understand-
ing of the global aspect of the exposure is required in order to complement
the in vivo approaches. The second chapter, on toxicokinetics, reviewed the
different phases of absorption, disposition, metabolism, and excretion. The
chapter provided an overview of what is happening biologically to these
small particles when they cross the membrane. This was followed by an eco-
toxicological chapter, which described in detail the environmental fate of
nanotechnology. This last chapter discussed the different types of nanopar-
ticles and their interaction with ecotoxicological models, as well as the fac-
tors affecting the toxicities.
Section VI focused on the life cycle assessment relating to nanoparticles.
Here, all of the aspects of the interaction were discussed, from the produc-
tion to the disposal of nanoparticles.
Finally, Section VII outlined the ethical and social implications of nano-
technology. This section contained the most important information because
today, society is more critical about technology and as a society, we need
to question ourselves about the importance of new technology. This section
complemented Section III because it discussed what we want and what we
do not want in a new technology.
Nanotechnology is probably the most important technology because we
believe that it is important to improve our quality of life while simulta-
neously addressing concerns from the population and the nongovernmental
organization who want to make informed decisions. This book is for pro-
fessionals, not necessarily specialists, who want to understand more about
the advantages and disadvantages of the technology and gain more of an
understanding of other nanotechnology issues. I hope that this topic will be
very useful to you.
Search WWH ::




Custom Search