Lake Ontario Center for Microplastics and Human Health in a Changing Environment

安大略湖环境变化中的微塑料和人类健康中心是一项为期五年的努力，旨在帮助防止五大湖在气候变化的背景下微塑料对人类健康的负面影响。五大湖是世界上最大的地表淡水系统，是3 000多万人的重要资源。气候变化正在以显著的方式影响五大湖，水变暖，pH值下降，降水模式发生变化。与此同时，塑料污染正在湖泊中积累，对生态系统和人类健康造成的影响在很大程度上是未知的。该中心将解决五大湖内尚未充分研究的对人类健康具有重要意义的关键变化。由于塑料循环的每个阶段都存在许多未知因素，因此需要多学科的系统科学方法来促进理解并提供解决方案。当微塑料进入环境时，会发生可能影响其生物活性的转化。塑料碎片的分解取决于湖泊的物理，化学和生物条件，所有这些都受到气候变化的影响。人类可能通过摄入、吸入空气中的颗粒物和皮肤接触接触微塑料。小的微塑料特别令人关注，因为它们有可能进入人体，突破上皮屏障，并与细胞相互作用。该中心将围绕1）三个独立但综合的研究项目，2）一个共同的材料和测量设施，将服务于所有三个项目，以及3）一个社区参与核心，专注于与社区合作伙伴的多方向参与。该中心将与广泛而多样化的合作伙伴联盟合作，开展社区科学和促进环境健康素养。 这些活动包括让居民参与监测泥石流的工作，以及为城市和农村的青年、教育工作者、社区团体和决策者等受众编写、评价和传播宣传材料。该项目将为博士后研究员、研究生和本科生提供培训。该中心由NSF海洋科学部和国家环境健康科学研究所（NIEHS）共同支持，其研究基于气候变化和淡水塑料污染之间的相互作用将对人类和环境健康产生越来越多的负面影响的假设。材料和计量核心将产生“原始”微塑料，并表征真实世界的微塑料样品，供三个研究项目使用，同时开发新方法，以促进未来的微塑料和人类健康研究。项目1建立在几年的工作基础上，旨在了解安大略湖流域人为碎片的输入，运输和命运，以便更好地预测安大略湖塑料污染的风险。根据这些初步研究，研究小组假设，气候相关因素将通过增加雨水径流增加消费后塑料向安大略的输送，并且预计温度，pH值和风暴强度的变化将（1）增加沥滤和降解速率和二次微塑料的形成，（2）促进生物膜的形成和病原体和抗生素抗性生物的丰富，增强生态毒性。该项目将测量陆地（主要是城市）系统中的碎片积累情况，测量雨水流入水道的情况，并评估降水在具有不同地表和人口特征的环境中碎片迁移方面的作用。项目2建立在正在进行的研究的基础上，这些研究证明了纳米膜技术在过滤水和浓缩滞留物中的微塑料以及从空气中取样微塑料以促进微塑料生物利用度研究方面的实用性。该项目将评估尺寸范围内的微塑料的存在，这些微塑料可以突破安大略湖水中可能接触皮肤和/或意外摄入的上皮屏障，并在近岸空气样本中量化可吸入微塑料。项目3将利用两栖动物非洲爪蟾严格评估微塑料在胚胎后蝌蚪组织中的生物分布和积累，使用原始和环境来源的微塑料，然后评估微塑料摄入对有效免疫系统和抗病毒免疫力发展的急性和长期影响。该团队还将使用结果来确定适用于人类研究的可靠生物标志物。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The Lake Ontario Center for Microplastics and Human Health in a Changing Environment is a five-year effort to help prevent negative human health impacts of microplastics in the context of climate change in the Great Lakes. The Great Lakes are the largest surface freshwater system in the world and are a critical resource for more than 30 million people. Climate change is impacting the Great Lakes in significant ways, with warming water, decreased pH, and shifting precipitation patterns. At the same time, plastic pollution is accumulating in the lakes, with largely unknown consequences for ecosystem and human health. This Center will address critical understudied changes within the Great Lakes that have significance for human health. Because of the many unknowns about every stage of the plastic cycle, multidisciplinary systems science approaches are needed to advance understanding and inform solutions. When microplastics enter the environment, transformations occur that may impact their bioactivity. Breakdown of plastic debris depends on the physical, chemical, and biological conditions of the lake, all of which are affected by climate changes. Human exposure to microplastics may occur through ingestion, inhalation of airborne particles, and skin contact. Small microplastics are of particular concern because of their potential to enter the body, breech the epithelial barrier, and interact with cells. The Center will be built around 1) three separate but integrated research projects, 2) a common facility on materials and measurement that will serve all three projects, and 3) a Community Engagement Core focused on multidirectional engagement with community partners. The center will engage with a broad and diverse coalition of partners to both conduct community science and promote environmental health literacy. These activities include involving residents in efforts to monitor debris flows, and developing, evaluating, and disseminating outreach materials for audiences including youth, educators, community groups, and policy makers in both urban and rural settings. The project will provide training for postdoctoral research fellows, graduate and undergraduate students. The Center is jointly supported by NSF’s Division of Ocean Sciences and by the National Institute for Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS).The Center’s research is built around the hypothesis that the interactions between climate change and freshwater plastic pollution will have increasingly negative consequences for human and environmental health. The Materials and Metrology Core will generate ‘virgin’ microplastics and characterize real-world microplastics samples for use by three research projects, while developing novel approaches to facilitate future microplastics and human health research. Project 1 builds on several years of work aimed at understanding the input, transport and fate of anthropogenic debris in the Lake Ontario basin in order to better predict the risk of plastic pollution in Lake Ontario. Informed by these preliminary studies, the team hypothesizes that climate-related factors will increase the delivery of post-consumer plastic to Lake Ontario through increased stormwater runoff, and that projected changes in temperature, pH, and storm intensity will (1) increase leaching and the rate of degradation and formation of secondary microplastics, (2) promote biofilm formation and abundance of pathogenic and antibiotic resistant organisms, and (3) enhance ecotoxicity. The project will measure debris accumulation in the terrestrial (mostly urban) system, measure input to waterways in stormwater, and assess the role of precipitation in debris transport across environments with different surface and population characteristics. Project 2 builds on on-going studies that demonstrate the utility of nanomembrane technology to filter water and concentrate microplastics in the retentate and to sample microplastics from air to facilitate research on the bioavailability of microplastic. The project will evaluate the presence of microplastics in size ranges that can breech epithelial barriers in Lake Ontario water that may contact skin and/or be accidentally ingested and in nearshore air samples to quantify respirable microplastics. Project 3 will leverage the amphibian Xenopus to rigorously assess microplastics biodistribution and accumulation in post-embryonic tadpole tissues, using both virgin and environmentally-derived microplastics, then evaluate the acute and long-term effects resulting from microplastics ingestion on the development of an efficient immune system and antiviral immunity under environmental conditions that mimic those projected to occur with climate change. The team will also use results to identify reliable biomarkers applicable for human studies.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.