A series of water-soluble fullerene C60 derivatives has been investigated for their cytotoxic
and hemolytic properties, with the aim to correlate structure with toxicity. It was observed that
cationic chains induce significant toxicity while the presence of neutral or anionic moieties did
not produce any response in our model. A validation of these experimental observations has
been performed by theoretical studies in which hydrophilic and hydrophobic surface areas were
correlated quantitatively with hemolytic properties.
