Recent progress in the green fabrication of cadmium sulfide and cadmium oxide nanoparticles: synthesis, antimicrobial and cytotoxic studies

•The cadmium undergoes bioreduction by various natural products present in bacteria, fungi, algae, and plants.•The biological synthesis gave a high control over the size distribution of nanoparticles and did not require stabilizing agents.•The antibacterial and anticancer properties of biologically produced CdO and CdS NPs are discussed.