Nanomaterials (NMs) are rapidly entering the market, in fact possibly at the fastest rate seen for any new group of materials. Hence, NMs are bound to end up in the environment where they may be toxic to organisms. Due to their small size NMs have a different molecular packing than equivalent bulk materials, presenting very different physicochemical properties. It is predicted that nanoparticles (NPs) will exhibit a more pronounced biological activity per given mass than larger size materials. Ecotoxicological studies with NPs are nearly all focused on testing one or few NPs. A more systematic approach to compare effects across many NMs with identified different but related characters (e.g. different aspect-ratios or surface activities) is only sparsely reported.
Hence, there is an urgent need to provide tool that allow us to fast develop an (eco)toxicological dataset containing comprehensive toxicity information relating to a diverse spectra of NPs characters. For this it is necessary to have the relevant and adequate testing materials, high throughput (HTP) ecotox tools, and data-analysis tools.
In bio-CHIP we have a custom made NPs library and a gene based HTP biological impact test system, which is combined with cutting edge expertise in handling such NP-biological data. This is the foundation for making this exploratory project feasible within the short framework. Hence, its success stands with the fact that we have the necessary tools and expertise already advanced and optimized, leaving the room for the actual exploring connections between biological effects and NPs descriptors. This can be implemented in a fast, reliable, and standardised HTP tool.