Research

Nano safety

Recent studies indicate that laser-generated colloidal nanoparticles have potential application as reference material for bio-response studies. The comparable high purity of the nanoparticles allows to study cellular uptake and response without having to consider residual ligands or contaminants from chemical synthesis. Here the laser-generated particles can be easily adapted to different exposure scenarios. In our toxicity studies, we have shown that the cellular uptake of laser-generated ligand-free gold nanoparticles during co-incubation does not seem to follow endocytic pathways and that no cytotoxicity is observed at concentration levels required for marking cells in vitro.

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Our main research goals and interests are:

• Design of standardized, clean and ligand-free nanoparticles for toxicological assays, particularly relevant in case e.g. toxicological effects from particles and ligands have to be differentiated or in case exotic nanomaterials (e.g. alloys) are required.
• We are currently looking for partners who are interested in reference nanomaterials for toxicological studies.

References:

[1] U. Taylor, C. Rehbock, C. Streich, D. Rath, S. Barcikowski, Rational design of gold nanoparticle toxicology assays: a question of exposure scenario, dose and experimental setup, Nanomedicine, 9 (2014) 1971-1989.

[2] U. Taylor, D. Tiedemann, C. Rehbock, W.A. Kues, S. Barcikowski, D. Rath, Influence of gold, silver and gold-silver alloy nanoparticles on germ cell function and embryo development, Beilstein Journal of Nanotechnology, 6 (2015) 651-664.