Long-term exposure to respirable dust containing silica leads to pneumoconiosis/silicosis. The disease is irreversible and incurable, and only preventive steps such as job rotation, use of personal protective equipment, etc., remain solutions to the problem. Under such a situation, early diagnosis or prediction may become very useful to control the disease. Biomarkers are biological parameters in blood serum that change their values with deposition of dust in the lung and onset of lung fibrosis. Since these biomarkers can help us to diagnose and in the prognosis of the disease before it is actually diagnosed by the conventional X-ray technique and lung function test used for diagnosis of silicosis. The present paper describes the various types of available biomarkers, their application and usefulness. The paper also suggests that further study of the behavior/level of these biomarkers on a specific subject with time may provide more useful information of a confirmatory nature for prevention of dust-linked diseases.

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New microstructures with interesting, unique and stable textures, particularly relevant to food systems were created by redispersing Microfibrillar cellulose (MFC). This paper reports the interactions between microfibrillar cellulose and carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC) in redispersed aqueous suspensions, by using rheological measurements on variable ratios of MFC/CMC and correlating these with apparent water mobility as determined by time domain NMR. MFC is a network of cellulose fibrils produced by subjecting pure cellulose pulp to high-pressure mechanical homogenisation. A charged polymer such as CMC reduces the aggregation of microfibrillar/fibre bundles upon drying. Small amplitude oscillatory rheological analysis showed viscoelastic gel-like behaviour of suspensions which was independent of the CMC content in the MFC suspension. A viscous synergistic effect was observed when CMC was added to MFC before drying, leading to improved redispersibility of the suspension. Novel measurements using NMR relaxation suggested that the aggregated microfibrillar/fibre bundles normally dominate the relaxation times (T). The dense microfibrillar network plays an important role in generating stable rheological properties and controlling the mobility of the polymer and hence the apparent mobility of the water in the suspensions.