Carbon-iron magnetic nanoparticles for agronomic use in plants, promising but still a long way to go

3 páginas, 2 figuras -- PAGS nros. 1295-1297In the recent years, multiple ways of interaction between the fields of nanotechnology and biology have been opened, mainly in the biomedical research, with the development of tools for diagnosis and controlled delivery of substances. (1,2) On the other hand, in the field of plant biology, the interaction between both disciplines has been less frequent. Most of the published work on this field has focus in the environmental impact of nanoparticles on crop growth and development; (3,4) and also on the bio production of nanoparticles using plant extracts (reviewed in (5) , as an example see also (6,7,8)). Much less attention has taken other possible aspects of the interrelationship between nanotechnology and plant biology, such as the development of nanodevices for controlled delivery of drugs or different kind of substances, (9,10) in a similar way to that already developed in the medical researchWork supported by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation, MICINN, International project EUI2008-00157 at the Iberian Laboratory of Nanotechnology, and National Projects BFU2008-00203 and AGL2008-04255Peer reviewe