Nanotoxicology and nanomedicine: making development decisions in an evolving governance environment

The fields of nanomedicine, risk analysis, and decision science have evolved considerably in the past decade, providing developers of nano-enabled therapies and diagnostic tools with more complete information than ever before and shifting a fundamental requisite of the nanomedical community from the need for more information about nanomaterials to the need for a streamlined method of integrating the abundance of nano-specific information into higher-certainty product design decisions. The crucial question facing nanomedicine developers that must select the optimal nanotechnology in a given situation has shifted from “how do we estimate nanomaterial risk in the absence of good risk data?” to “how can we derive a holistic characterization of the risks and benefits that a given nanomaterial may pose within a specific nanomedical application?” Many decision support frameworks have been proposed to assist with this inquiry; however, those based in multicriteria decision analysis have proven to be most adaptive in the rapidly evolving field of nanomedicine—from the early stages of the field when conditions of significant uncertainty and incomplete information dominated, to today when nanotoxicology and nano-environmental health and safety information is abundant but foundational paradigms such as chemical risk assessment, risk governance, life cycle assessment, safety-by-design, and stakeholder engagement are undergoing substantial reformation in an effort to address the needs of emerging technologies. In this paper, we reflect upon 10 years of developments in nanomedical engineering and demonstrate how the rich knowledgebase of nano-focused toxicological and risk assessment information developed over the last decade enhances the capability of multicriteria decision analysis approaches and underscores the need to continue the transition from traditional risk assessment towards risk-based decision-making and alternatives-based governance for emerging technologies.     

Ca–Mg mixing in aluminosilicate glasses: An investigation using 17O MAS and 3QMAS and 27Al MAS NMR

To better understand non-framework cation mixing in Ca–Mg aluminosilicate glasses, ¹⁷O MAS and 3QMAS NMR studies were done on glasses on the Mg₃Al₂Si₃O₁₂–Ca₃Al₂Si₃O₁₂ join as well as several compositions with lower Al/Si ratios. While not all of the oxygen sites are fully resolved, the non-bridging oxygen associated with two Ca and one Mg cations is under-represented relative to that predicted by a model assuming random Ca/Mg mixing. Therefore, local non-bridging oxygen environments are rich in Mg, and extra Ca must be associated with charged bridging oxygens such as Al–O–Si. The deviation from random mixing increases as the Al/Si ratio decreases and as X_Mg approaches 0.50, suggesting a reduction in configurational entropy that may be compensated for by other sources, including mixing of network forming cations. Al–O–Al is detected, and appears to increase with increasing X_Mg and increasing Al/Si. High field ²⁷Al MAS NMR also shows that these glasses all have substantial concentrations of ^[5]Al, but no detectable ^[6]Al (0.5% detection limit). The amount of ^[5]Al increases non-linearly as X_Mg increases and very slightly as Al/Si increases.     

Rhenium bipyridine complexes for the recognition of glucose

Bipyridine ligands containing pendant methyl, amino, and amino-boronic acid groups were synthesized. Coordination complexes of these ligands with rhenium were prepared straightforwardly and in good yield. The fluorescence behavior of the Re complexes was studied as a function of pH and exposure to various concentrations of glucose. The methyl bipyridine complex showed no change in fluorescence with pH, the amino derivative showed a rapid decrease from low pH to neutral, and the amino-boronate derivative showed little change from pH 4 to 10. Fluorescence quenching was observed at high pH as expected on the basis of a photoinduced electron transfer (PET) signaling mechanism. This behavior can be explained on the basis of the first oxidation and reduction potentials of these complexes. Glucose testing showed a significant dependence on the solvent system used. In pure methanol, the rhenium boronate complex exhibited a 55% fluorescence intensity increase upon increasing glucose concentration from 0 to 400 mg/dL. However, in 50 vol % methanol/phosphate buffered saline, none of the complexes showed significant response in the glucose range of physiological interest.     

Ordered and Kinetically Discrete Sequential Protein Release from Biodegradable Thin Films

Multidrug regimens can sometimes treat recalcitrant diseases when single‐drug therapies fail. Recapitulating complex multidrug administration from controlled release films for localized delivery remains challenging because their release kinetics are frequently intertwined, and an initial burst release of each drug is usually uncontrollable. Kinetic control over protein release is demonstrated by cross‐linking layer‐by‐layer films during the assembly process. We used biodegradable and naturally derived components and relied on copper‐free click chemistry for bioorthogonal covalent cross‐links throughout the film that entrap but do not modify the embedded protein. We found that this strategy restricted the interdiffusion of protein while maintaining its activity. By depositing a barrier layer and a second protein‐containing layer atop this construct, we generated well‐defined sequential protein release with minimal overlap that follows their spatial distribution within the film.