The fullerene family, and especially C60, has very appealing photo-, electro-chemical and physical properties, which can be
exploited in many and different biological fields. Fullerene is able to fit inside the hydrophobic cavity of HIV proteases, inhibiting
the access of substrates to the catalytic site of the enzyme. It can be used as radical scavenger; in fact some water-soluble derivatives
are able to reduce ROS concentrations. At the same time, if exposed to light, fullerene can produce singlet oxygen in high quantum
yields. This action, together with the direct electron transfer from excited state of fullerene and DNA bases, can be used to cleave
DNA. In this review we report the most recent aspects of fullerene biological applications.
