NANORETOX

NanoReTox will identify the potential risks to the environment and human health posed by free engineered (i.e. manmade) nanomaterial by comprehensively addressing five key questions:
- How does the environment into which nanoparticles are released affect their physicochemical properties and their bioreactivity?
- How does this impact on their ability to interact with and/or penetrate mammalian and aquatic cells and organisms (bioavailability) and will bioavailability result in toxicity?
- Is there a pattern of cellular reactivity and/or toxicity related to physicochemical properties, i.e. a hierarchy of activity?
- What combination of conditions discovered in (1-3) above are most likely to pose a risk to human health and the environment?
- How can this information be incorporated in a risk assessment model?

We have assembled a team of experts from across the EU and the US whose combined expertise can address these questions in depth, and therefore comprehensively cover the scope of research topic NMP-2007-1.3-2 Risk assessment of engineered nanoparticles on health and the environment.