Editorial

Future interactions in Particle Toxicology: the role of PFT

Paul JA Borm

Zuyd University, Heerlen, The Netherlands

author email corresponding author email

Particle and Fibre Toxicology 2008, 5:5doi:10.1186/1743-8977-5-5

Published:	7 April 2008

First paragraph (this article has no abstract)

Particle research and particle toxicology have been historically closely connected to industrial activities or materials, such as coal, asbestos and manmade mineral fibers. Until the early nineties papers on these icons of exposure dominated the literature in classical journals with a strong occupational or hygiene approach. Along with the evolution in our understanding of general disease, particle toxicology has benefited from the developments in molecular medicine. Over time there has been a considerable change in the experimental approach taken by particle toxicologists. Nowadays inflammation as a key response to particle deposition in tissue and a process in particle effects has been inexorable and inflammation now lies at the very heart of our understanding of lung and systemic disease associated with particle exposure. As in all molecular medicine, there has been a huge concentration on the regulation of gene expression as a basis for disease, and this continues. Oxidative stress has emerged as the dominant paradigm for how particles initiate inflammation and genotoxicity, a stress further augmented by inflammatory cells releasing their arsenal of oxidants.