A team in India has tested the antibacterial activity of silver nanoparticles generated in the presence of the common microbes Streptomyces species. They used ultraviolet spectroscopy and X-ray diffraction to assess the structures of the AgNPs. Electron microscopy revealed the particles to be spherical and 30 nanometres in diameter. The particles were active against Escherichia coli and other microbial pathogens. However, parallel tests against a laboratory breast cancer cell line showed them to be even more toxic against such cells and to open up the possibility of using such biological AgNPs in a new type of anticancer therapy.
Baskaran, B., Muthukumarasamy, A. and Maruthai, J. (2018) ‘Biological fabrication of silver nanomaterials and their applications in pharmaceutical fields’, Int. J. Computational Materials Science and Surface Engineering, Vol. 7, No. 2, pp.79–88.