Project description
Gut barrier models to study the translocation of microplastics and nanoplastics
With the current abundance of microplastics and nanoplastics in our environment, the exposure of humans and animals is unavoidable. It has been established that microplastics and nanoplastics are present in the drinking water and the ocean, and are inevitably consumed by aquatic organisms and mammals. The impact on humans remains to be explored, including the capacity of those substances to translocate through the gut barrier. The EU-funded MIGMIPS project aims to develop a novel in vitro approach to quantify the translocation of microplastics and nanoplastics through the gut epithelial barrier. To that end, scientists will work towards creating micro-physiological models that closely resemble the gut barrier as well as methods for the detection and characterisation of plastics inside biological tissues and liquids.
Objective
The presence of micro and nanoplastics is now documented in the drinking water, ocean, marine invertebrates and fishes. Their toxicity for humans is still mostly unknown, as well as their capacity to translocate through the gut barrier, especially since it depends strongly on the size, shape, surface state, material of these plastics, which are strongly heterogeneous or even contaminated by organic or toxic compounds. In this project, I propose to develop new in-vitro systems in order to quantify the translocation of environmental nano and microplastics obtained from plastic wastes, through the gut epithelial barrier. This proposal includes the development of 1- microphysiological systems mimicking that barrier and 2- detection techniques for the characterization of micro and nanoplastics directly inside biological tissues (Raman-SERS, SEM, AFM, confocal microscopy) or in liquids.
Fields of science
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques.
- engineering and technologyenvironmental engineeringwater treatment processesdrinking water treatment processes
- natural sciencesearth and related environmental sciencesenvironmental sciencespollution
- natural sciencesphysical sciencesopticsmicroscopyconfocal microscopy
- engineering and technologyother engineering and technologiesmicrotechnologyorgan on a chip
- natural sciencesbiological scienceszoologyinvertebrate zoology
Keywords
Programme(s)
Funding Scheme
MSCA-IF - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowships (IF)Coordinator
75794 Paris
France