Joined: 16 Mar 2004 |Posted: Mon Dec 04, 2006 9:54 am Post
subject: Carbon-Nanotube Toxicity Test Tricks Scientists
|Carbon-Nanotube Toxicity Test Tricks Scientists by Laura
Mgrdichian Recent research has revealed that a standard cell-
viability test may be causing carbon-nanotubes to “fake”
toxicity. This work may explain why some studies have concluded
that carbon nanotubes – which are being studied for their
potential to improve building materials, drug-delivery systems,
and electronics, to name a few applications – are dangerous to
human health while others have not. Researchers from the
Institute of Toxicology and Genetics at the Karlsruhe Research
Center in Karlsruhe, Germany, exposed human lung cells to
single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) – large cylindrical
carbon molecules – and conducted several tests to determine the
nanotubes' effect on the cells' viability. Three tests showed
the nanotubes to be non-toxic, but a fourth curiously produced
the opposite result. “Each of the four tests gauges the