2021

One last exciting update before the holidays: I've been awarded the Emerging Leader in Atomic Spectroscopy Award for my careers' work using ICP-MS. As a passionate analytical chemist, its a great targeted award from my research field!

I'm passionate about the work we do, inspired by amazing students who work alongside me, and thankful for colleagues who helped shape my outlook.

Can one measure nanoplastics translocation across the gut? If you use metal-doped nanoplastics in lab exposures, even low concentrations are measurable using single particle ICP-MS! 🥳Check out our recent findings.

Have you been thinking about the large-scale changes which are required in the way we make, use and dispose of plastics to mitigate plastic pollution in the future? Martin Wagner and I have in our recent comment published in Nature Reviews Materials

Nanoplastics, bioturbation in soil by worms, and some cool new analytics: check out our latest publication assessing the spatial distribution of plastics in terrestrial ecosystems

Denise was excited to present her research vision on assessing environmental impacts of anthropogenic particles to a broad audience of members of ETH and beyond!

Excited to finally have a paper together with some of my friends from the environmental health and safety of nanoparticles and microplastics world after many years of conferences and fun :) 

With such excellent support from the SNF, it's fantastic to be able to reach a larger platform to both share our research on plastic pollution and have more visibility for young women in STEM!

It was a great experience to collaborate with researchers from several institutions to better understand the state of the art on measuring microplastics in biological matrices. Read more in this new opinion paper. 

With the fall semester, the ECAM group welcomes a new postdoc and three Masters students who will study various aspects of microplastic pollution. 

In the last decade, environmental scientists and toxicologists have worked hard to understand the implications of engineered nanomaterials - but how does this research align and where are there gaps remaining? Here a framework assessing environmental realism of experiments guides researchers towards answers to these questions

The best part of leading a lab group in Switzerland is having group retreats in the mountains with our sporty bunch! Backpacking, wild camping, canyoneering, hiking, swimming in the river - and some Raclette and wine - make for a wicked great 4 days of team building! :)

I fell into the area of textiles and particle release (nanoparticles, microplastics) during my postdoc, and more than 8 years later we're still on it: microplastic fiber and fibril releases during abrasion and wearing.

In collaboration with Wageningen University, we show how ecotoxicological effect studies now are possible with accurate exposure and effect assessment, using actual rather than nominal doses, by measuring the metal content in biota and exposure media.

Our perspective in Nature Nanotechnology, Placing nanoplastics in the context of global plastic pollution, is now online! I had some great and long discussions with my co-authors, so hope you can also enjoy the result as much as we enjoyed writing it!

So, not on the cover of Vogue (yet! ;) ), but happy to be quoted there with some concepts from our recent Nature Communications paper, "Microplastic regulations should be more precise to incentivize both innovation and environmental safety"!

Addressing plastic pollution. Microplastic pollution is a serious problem, but blanket bans won’t solve the issue, says Denise Mitrano. We should regulate plastics more precisely to create incentives for both innovation and environmental safety.

After leading an editorial team for a Research Topic in the journal Fronteiers in Environmenal Science, our editorial," Biogeochemistry of Anthropogenic Particles: Connecting Research Themes Across Particle Chemistry, Environments and Impacts" is now online!

Wicked exciting and such an honor! This year Prof. Mitrano be delivering a Keynote address at SETAC Europe! It would be great to be able to speak live in the big lecture hall, but still looking forward to seeing you all there in the virtual conference space :)

How does microplastic impact the soil biophysical environment? Apply for a PostDoc position with me and we can find out together at ETH! Looking forward to developing some cool new analytical tools and assessing microplastic as a global change factor!

Microplastic fibers aren't only released from clothes during domestic washing - they can also be problematic further up the textile production chain. Here we look at releases from fabric production processes and aspects of industrial ecology