Nanomaterial's toxicity and its regulation strategies

Abstract

Nanotechnology is having a great deal of public interest, due to its wide array of applications in biomedical research including drug delivery, biosensors, imaging, stem cells, regenerative medicines and other industries such as agriculture, solar energy, cosmetics, etc. The increasing and demanding role of nanomaterials also poses a great challenge to their end-users, their unique physio-chemical properties from their bulk counterpart make them interestingly novel but raise a matter of concern in terms of toxicity. Reliable characterization of nanomaterials and their mechanism of action, their final fate and, behavior in the environment and human body are still not fully understood or explored well. The legal framework adopted by various regulatory bodies for handling nanomaterials before coming to the marketplace should be robust and flexible and should reflect the characteristics of specific products, and provide a clear idea of the issues related to their safety, efficacy, public health impact and their final fate in the environment. In the current review, toxicity of nanomaterials and their risk assessment strategies by various regulatory bodies is discussed.