Nanoparticles in the Environment
Over the past decade, major advances in nanotechnology have led to the production of nearly 6,000 types of new materials that are being manufactured at sizes unprecedented in the history of life. While these materials offer a great many benefits to humans, some evidence suggests that certain types of materials can have unintended impacts on our environment. But unfortunately, the production of new nanomaterials has greatly outpaced our ability to understand their impacts on biology.
The University of California recently formed the Center for the Environmental Implications of Nanotechnology (UC CEIN) in order to develop a new and improved way of studying the risks of harmful materials. UC CEIN is a collaboration among medical doctors, engineers, ecologists, and social scientists who will develop a systematic way to rapidly assess the impacts of nanoparticles on cells, populations, and ecosystems, and then disseminate information to the public.
Here at UCSB, we are running experiments that will compare how metal oxides and carbonaceous nanoparticles impact three of the most common types of natural food-webs (e.g., a terrestrial plant-soil food-web, a freshwater benthic food-web, and a marine filter-feeding food-web). My lab is focusing on how nanomaterials impact algae, herbivores, and fish that comprise freshwater food-webs. We are taking a bi-directional approach that not only assumes nanoparticles impact properties of the food-web, but which also assumes that the complexity of the food-web itself influences the toxicity of nanomaterials and their ability to get into higher trophic levels.
Visit the CEIN website at The University of California Center for the Environmental Implications of Nanotechnology,
Graduate Research Opportunity!
A graduate assistanship is available for a student to work on this project. See announcement at [Download PDF]
Acknowledgements
National Science Foundation