In both the safety assessment of commercial nanoparticles (such as metals, metal oxides, carbon nanotubes) and therapeutical use nanoparticles (E.g., mesoporous silica) it is required that we understand how the physicochemical characteristics of the engineered nanomaterials relate to biological responses such as cellular uptake, biodistribution, bioavailability and the catalysis of hazardous biological responses at the nano/bio interface. While this is a potentially rewarding discovery platform, the number of perturbations at the nano-bio interface is potentially overwhelming and requires the use of high content and high throughput screening approaches to perform modeling and predictions. My talk will delineate the implementation of high throughput methodology in cells and zebra fish and describe how high content discovery can be used for the safety assessment of commercial nanomaterials as well as the improvement of nanoparticles that can be used for drug and siRNA delivery. I will describe how the use of compositional and combinatorial nanomaterial libraries is being used to elucidate the material properties that drive biological injury response pathways, as well as how to use safer by design strategies to improve safety of ZnO and CNTs. I will also show how in silico data transformation and decision-making tools can help to speed up the rate of discovery for the establishment of a predictive toxicological paradigm.
N.B. Prof. André Nel will give another lecture the same day at 2:00 p.m. (same place).
Contact local ICGM : Jean-Olivier Durand