Nanotoxicology: Laying a firm foundation for sustainable nanotechnologies

In 2004, Donaldson and colleagues proposed a new idea to the world of toxicology-the idea that nanometer-scale particles behave so differently from their larger counterparts that a new subcategory of the field was needed (1). They named the new subcategory nanotoxicology-a term which found further support the following year in the review “Nanotoxicology: An emerging discipline evolving from studies of ultrafine particles” by Oberdörster et al. (2). SinceDonaldson et al.‘s original paper, nanotoxicology as a field of study has come into its own: Numerous meetings and conferences have been held around the world on the topic since 2004, and a casual search of the Web of Science shows the number of papers using the term to be increasing each year. The collection of chapters in this book is the latest step in thematuration of nanotoxicology from an idea to a recognized discipline, and represents a distillation of the knowledge and concepts that are defining the field. This collection is both an important milestone along the road to understanding and managing potential risks associated with nanoscale particles and a signpost to guiding future investigations. But there is still a long way to go before we can assess or predict the biological impact of nanoscale particles with confidence.