Rudolf Buchheim Award 2026: Toward a ToxAtlas of carbon-based nanomaterials: single-cell RNA sequencing reveals initiating cell circuits in pulmonary inflammation

Our plain-English summary of Rudolf Buchheim Award 2026: Toward a ToxAtlas of carbon-based nanomaterials: single-cell RNA sequencing reveals initiating cell circuits in pulmonary inflammation, by C. Voss (Naunyn-Schmiedeberg's Archives of Pharmacology, 2026).

The study

• Author: C. Voss
• Journal: Naunyn-Schmiedeberg's Archives of Pharmacology
• Published: 2026;399(8):12723-12725
• Type of article: Historical article
• Read it: PubMed · Publisher · Free full text

Abstract

The Rudolf Buchheim Award of the German Society for Experimental and Clinical Pharmacology and Toxicology (DGPT) honors outstanding contributions by early-career scientists in pharmacology and toxicology. The 2026 award recognizes research that advances mechanistic understanding of the initiation of respiratory inflammation by carbon-based nanomaterials (CBN). While pulmonary inflammation is recognized as an early adverse but generic response to inhaled particles, only little is known about the initiating events and involved cell types. Carola Voss systematically dissected cell type-specific responses to soot-like carbon nanoparticles, flexible double-walled carbon nanotubes, and needle-like multi-walled carbon nanotubes known for their asbestos-like toxicity at single-cell resolution in the lab of Dr. Tobias Stoeger at Helmholtz Munich. Using advanced single-cell transcriptomics of CBN-exposed mouse lungs, this research establishes a toxicological atlas that links physicochemical CBN properties to cell-specific inflammatory initiation, cellular stress responses, and immune cell recruitment. The findings provide a conceptual framework for mode of action-based hazard assessment and support the rational design of safer nanomaterials along with the development of specific in vitro assays.

© 2026. The Author(s).

In plain English

This is a short award communication, not a new research report. It summarized the author's earlier study, published in 2025 in ACS Nano (Voss et al. 2025). That study did not examine asbestos. It studied mouse lungs exposed to three carbon-based nanomaterials: soot-like carbon nanoparticles, flexible double-walled carbon nanotubes, and needle-like multi-walled carbon nanotubes. The article describes the multi-walled nanotubes as known for asbestos-like toxicity. The study used single-cell RNA sequencing to follow how individual lung cells responded. According to this summary, all three materials caused a comparable early inflammatory response, measured by neutrophil cells recruited into the airspace, at the doses chosen. Each material set off that response through a different cell route. Fibroblast subsets increased their expression of the signaling molecules Ccl2 and Ccl7, and inflammatory signaling could be triggered at sublethal exposure levels. The article gives no doses, animal numbers or statistics. The author concluded that the findings provide a framework for hazard assessment based on how a material acts.

We wrote this plain-English summary from the full article with the help of AI, and a second AI model checked each sentence against the article. It is not the authors' wording; the abstract and the article are their own account.

What the study did and found

• Design: Brief communication accompanying a research award; it summarizes the author's previously published 2025 mouse study and reports no new data
• Who was studied: Lungs of mice exposed to carbon-based nanomaterials; the article gives no numbers of animals, strain, dates or study location beyond the lab at Helmholtz Munich
• Exposure: Three carbon-based nanomaterials: soot-like carbon nanoparticles (CNP), flexible double-walled carbon nanotubes (DWCNT), and needle-like multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNT), the last described as known for asbestos-like toxicity; doses not given
• Main results:
  • At the doses chosen, all three nanomaterials induced a comparable acute inflammatory response in exposed mouse lungs, measured as neutrophils recruited into the airspace, but the responses differed by material and by cell type
  • In exposed mouse lungs, the neutrophil recruitment was started by different cells for each material: alveolar epithelial cells releasing CXCL1 (carbon nanoparticles), activated alveolar macrophages secreting CCL3 (double-walled nanotubes), or damaged alveolar macrophages releasing IL-1α (multi-walled nanotubes)
  • In exposed mouse lungs, subsets of fibroblasts acted as sentinel cells and upregulated chemokines such as Ccl2 and Ccl7
  • Transcriptional response patterns were linked to the materials' physical and chemical features, particularly aspect ratio, rigidity and aggregation behavior
  • In exposed mouse lungs, inflammatory signaling could be triggered at sublethal exposure levels, not only with overt cell death
• The authors' conclusion: The author concluded that the findings provide a conceptual framework for hazard assessment based on mode of action, and support the design of safer nanomaterials and the development of specific in vitro (cell-based) assays

Topics

Medical terms in this study, explained in our Lexicon: Inflammation.

Related studies

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• Inhalation and Oropharyngeal Aspiration Exposure to Rod-Like Carbon Nanotubes Induce Similar Airway Inflammation and Biological Responses in Mouse Lungs — P. Kinaret, M. Ilves, et al. (2017)
• Long-term effects of carbon containing engineered nanomaterials and asbestos in the lung: one year postexposure comparisons — A.A. Shvedova, N. Yanamala, et al. (2014)
• Mesothelioma cell heterogeneity identified by single cell RNA sequencing — L. Wu, Z. Wang, et al. (2025)
• 1987 H. P. Smith award lecture. Eyes for the epidemiologist: the pathologist's role in shaping our understanding of the asbestos-associated diseases — J.E. Craighead (1988)
• Comparative proteomics and pulmonary toxicity of instilled single-walled carbon nanotubes, crocidolite asbestos, and ultrafine carbon black in mice — J.G. Teeguarden, B.J. Webb-Robertson, et al. (2011)

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