Facing the Dangers of Nanotech

Continued from page 1

AM: I don't know, and I'm not prepared to commit myself at this stage, because we are at such an early stage in the debate. The thing that concerns me is, there is very much a mind-set that is based on the conventional understanding of chemicals. But nanomaterials are not chemicals. They have a structural component there as well as a chemical component.

TR : You say we're still at an early stage, but aren't you also arguing for the need to get going, to do something now before something bad happens?

AM: That's where you come down to talking about "oversight" rather than regulations. If you're looking at developing best practices for handling nanomaterials, you can be far faster than you can with new legislation leading to regulation. So there are ways of dealing with challenges in the near future that don't necessarily mean resorting to regulation.

TR : You've made the point that nanotech is moving too fast to keep up with, and you've proposed some interesting new technologies that could help.

AM: It's very clear that we are moving into a new era in many ways. It's very clear that conventional ways of doing things and thinking just aren't going to be up to the job of dealing with some of these new technologies and products.

TR : You talked about developing smart sensors that measure not only the number of particles in the air that a worker might inhale, but also harmful effects.

AM: That's right. You could imagine 10 to 20 years from now. You're developing a new nanotechnology material. You have absolutely no idea whether it's going to be safe or harmful. What if you had a little sensor that you could put on your body that began to flash if there was a possibility of having a hazardous exposure? That would mean not only measuring the amount of stuff you're exposed to but actually that property of the stuff that is likely to lead to harm in the body, such as oxidative stress, which from what we can tell right now is a major indicator of potential hazard. It would be an indicator to say, "Hold on a minute, there may be a problem here."