Bio: Dr. Navas is a Research Professor at the National Institute for Agricultural and Food Research and Technology (INIA), the largest institute under the Spanish Council for Scientific Research (CSIC). He completed his PhD at CSIC focusing on fish reproductive physiology with a close connection to the aquaculture industry. He pursued postdoctoral research in Germany working on endocrine disruption in fish, a field that continues exploring today. Since 2010, he has been involved in the study of nanomaterial safety and has participated in a number of EU projects on the subject. Together with research, the technical and technological tasks constitute an important part of his work: with a charge of the Ministry for Ecological Transition, he leads a team dedicated to environmental risk assessment of biocides and he takes part in a number of OECD working groups and at the ECHA Nanomaterials Expert Group (NMEG).

Abstract: Nowadays there is an increasing production and use of a wide variety of carbon-based materials, from carbon nanotubes (CNTs) to graphene related 2D materials (GR2M). Consequently, the exposure of users and operators to these materials, as well as their release into the environment during production, transport, usage, and eventual recycling or disposal, is inevitable. Therefore, it is becoming essential to conduct an appropriate assessment of their hazards (toxicity) to human beings and the environment. In vitro systems are capable of generating information very quickly, leading to significant resource savings while adhering to the basic ethical principles of the 3Rs approach. However, in vitro systems readouts are normally associated with spectrophotometry, fluorescence or luminescence measurements, which carbon-based materials can interfere with. There exists a wide variety of cellular assays that can inform about alterations of cellular activity or the induction or inhibition of different functions. In all cases, the possible binding of the studied materials to the substrates used in the assays or to the generated products, as well as a possible interference with the readouts following different mechanisms must be taken into consideration.