Multidisciplinary Approaches and Insights into the Ecotoxicology of Engineered Nanomaterials by the UC CEIN

Engineered nanomaterial (ENM) use has proliferated in research, manufacturing, and in consumer products. Material exchange with the environment is ongoing and inevitable, and thus it is crucial to understand the fates and effects of ENMs in ecological systems. Expecting that ecological fates and effects of ENMs will vary with ENM chemistry and characteristics under various environmental conditions, an important outcome of nano-ecotoxicological research is to guide the future safe development of ENMs. The mission of the University of California Center for Environmental Implications of Nanotechnology (UC CEIN) is to insure that nanotechnology is introduced and implemented in a responsible and environmentally-compatible manner to allow the U.S. and the international community to leverage the benefits of nanotechnology for global economic and social benefit. To elicit understanding that is environmentally-relevant and transferable, UC CEIN members are conducting coordinated research to simultaneously address: mechanisms of ENM effects on cells and organisms, origins and manifestation of effects in several representative complex biological systems involving multiple trophic levels, and modeling frameworks for quantitatively extrapolating results from controlled, individual studies to other ENM-biological system contexts. In this presentation, research results from within the UC CEIN are reported, demonstrating both the value of the research perspective and efficacies of the approaches. Partnerships within and external to the UC CEIN define and provide: EMNs that are societally-relevant and that build upon industrial ENM formulations for specific hypothesis testing, insights into ENM physicochemical behaviors within ecological experiments, high throughput facilities for rapid and deep hypothesis testing, and an integrative fate and effects modeling framework whose results can be used in risk ranking. The essentiality of these partnerships is demonstrated by ecotoxicological results thus far for model ecological systems.