Events

February 4, 2025 at 11:00 AM

Philip Demokritou

Rutgers University

Henry Rutgers Chair and Professor in Nanoscience and Environmental Bioengineering

Colburn 366
University of Delaware | Newark, Delaware

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From plastics to micro-nanoplastics: potential environmental health implications

Micro- and nanoplastics (MNPs) are the byproducts of the environmental degradation of plastics across their life cycle. Mounting evidence of increasing MNP contamination of our natural environments, including contamination of the food chain, drinking water, and air makes human population exposure inevitable. More alarmingly, emerging evidence from human biomonitoring studies also confirmed the presence of MNPs in human tissues and organs including, placenta, blood, lungs among others. While epidemiological studies linking MNP exposures to disease outcomes are lacking, there is an urgency to assess the bioactivity and toxicological footprint of environmentally relevant “real world” MNPs and identify potential health risks. This presentation will focus on a number of ongoing research projects in the Nanoscience and Advanced Materials Center (NAMC) with an emphasis on MNP ingestion.