Project Grant 2306229

The National Science Foundation awarded a $249,865 Project Grant under the Engineering (47.041) federal grant program to the Regents of the University of California at Riverside. The award will support collaborative research between October 1, 2022 and August 31, 2024 to understand the interactions of novel synthetic models of environmental nanoparticles with microalgae at the single-cell level. Specifically, the researchers will develop polymer-coated nanocrystals with non-spherical morphologies and enhanced fluorescence as surrogates for environmentally released nanoparticles. A microfluidic platform will enable in situ and in vivo experiments on nanoplastic uptake and toxicological responses in Chlamydomonas reinhardtii algae cells. Additionally, the team will apply membrane elasticity theory and coarse-grained simulation to predict anisoptropic nanoparticle adsorption and internalization by lipid membranes at multiple scales. The integration of experimentation and multiscale modeling aims to test how irregular surface morphology influences individual and collective internalization of environmental nanoparticles.