Inhaling carbon nanotubes, thought to be a key building block for tomorrow's nanotechnology, may be as harmful as inhaling asbestos. Research at the University of Edinburgh/MRC Center for Inflammation Research suggests that nanotubes, specifically long, thin fiber-like ones, can penetrate into lung tissue just as asbestos fibers do. Of course, inhaling asbestos fibers can lead to a form of cancer called mesothelioma. In the new research, the scientists observed how the nanotubes inflamed the body cavity lining of mice. From Scientific American:
The Edinburgh CIR study, which will also appear in the June issue of Nature Nanotechnology, was very specific, looking only at nanotubes that emulated fiber behavior and their potential to cause a certain type of cancer; other types of nanotubes could affect the body differently–for better or worse, researchers say.
Maynard and his colleagues focused their attention specifically on the hypothesis that long, thin carbon nanotubes could have the same impact as similarly shaped asbestos fibers. "If you get these things into the lungs," he says, "they form scarlike tissue, and the body sees them like a scaffolding, building new cells over them and thickening the walls of the lungs."
The study is not intended to keep nanotechnology from developing further but rather to flag potential dangers of nanotubes in places at manufacturing and disposal sites, the researchers wrote in their paper.
