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Silicon Nano-biotechnology pp 93–104Cite as

Biosafety Assessment of Silicon Nanomaterials

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Part of the book series: SpringerBriefs in Molecular Science ((BRIEFSMOLECULAR))

Abstract

Biosafety assessment of nanomaterials is of essential importance and regarded as a critical precondition for practical applications. Silicon nanomaterials have shown great promise for myriad biological and biomedical applications, including biosensing, bioimaging, cancer diagnosis and therapy, etc. It is worthwhile to point out that, while favorable biocompatibility is accredited to silicon, systematic and reliable biosafety assessment of silicon nanomaterials is required to be carried out for practical applications. Scientists have made pioneer work to investigate in vitro and in vivo behaviors (e.g., cellular viability, biodistribution, pharmacokinetics, etc.) of two typical kinds of silicon nanomaterials (i.e., silicon nanoparticles (SiNPs) and silicon nanowires (SiNWs)). These primary results suggest favorable biocompatibility of silicon nanomaterials in general; notwithstanding, potential safety concerns are also addressed by several studies, based on investigation of detectable in vitro and in vivo toxicity induced by silicon nanomaterials. This chapter intends to take SiNPs and SiNWs as models and discuss topics concerning silicon materials-related biosafety investigation, with the hope to outline these pioneer studies as the starting points for risk assessment of silicon nanostructures.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Functional Nano and Soft Materials (FUNSOM), Jiangsu Key Laboratory for Carbon-Based Functional Materials & Devices and Devices Collaborative Innovation Center of Suzhou Nano Science and Technology, Soochow University, Suzhou, China

    Yao He & Yuanyuan Su

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  1. Yao He
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  2. Yuanyuan Su
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Correspondence to Yao He .

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© 2014 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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He, Y., Su, Y. (2014). Biosafety Assessment of Silicon Nanomaterials. In: Silicon Nano-biotechnology. SpringerBriefs in Molecular Science. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-54668-6_6

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