News and Updates

I am passionate about training students in science communication and interdisciplinary thinking - and so am very happy to present this perspective to help guide students (and their advisors) in the future!

Plastics are used (with good reason) across many agricultural practices, but they can be used more sustainably to reduce pollution while still increasing crop yields. Many reflections on this in a great collaborative perspective just published in Nature Comms Earth & Environment

To what extent is an eco-corona formed depending on polymer chemistry and aging? Using precise measurements, we can accurately assess the sorption of biomacromolecules onto surfaces to assess plastics environmental weathering in this new publication.

Feeling like a real geochemist again by attending Goldschmidt in Lyon. Nice that plastics pollution sessions were held for the first time, and I could be the kickoff keynote speaker!

I recently lead a virtual issue across ACS journals to assess how we can balance innovative new approaches with standardized methodologies for microplastics and nanoplastics research.

A really great week back in New England - meeting old and new friends in a fantastic environment mixing high quality science and the outdoors!

Some new develops in microplastics analysis in aqueous samples: excited to get back to some concepts from my Ph D by further developing single particle techniques - feeling like a real analytical chemist again!

Acute exposure and toxicity studies play an important role in understanding hazard, but longer-term multi-generational studies are needed to assess pollutants which we know will persist in the environment for a long time, like nanoplastics.

Wicked great week in Slovenia, bringing microplastics research to the EWCPS2023 with a keynote lecture and a birthday weekend of nordic skiing in the mountains

Techniques are needed to upconcentrate nanoplastics from water samples for easier analysis. Here we explore some initial steps towards developing extraction approaches

Just before the holidays, we got some good news with a paper acceptance If you want to learn more about nanoplastics fate and biological uptake in freshwater systems, check this out!

Utilizing metal-doped plastics for easier quantification, we've assessed not just the uptake rate of nanoplastics in oysters but also depuration in typical time periods post-harvest to better understand potential (human) exposure

Do plastics make clouds? In this perspective, we explore the potential of how microplastics and nanoplastics could act as cloud condensation nuclei or ice-nucleating particles, affecting cloud formation processes

We've heard it before: (micro)plastic pollution is complex and is a wicked problem. In our new comment in Nature Reviews Earth and Environment, we say embrace this to holistically understand the issue.

Earlier this year, we showed that nanoplastics could translocate the gut epithelium of fish in 4 h using a gut-sac model. We now show that this fraction can result in exposure to internal tissues, including the carcass, in live fish

Are you searching for a good way to extract microplastics from soils? We've developed a new approach suitable for a variety of soil textures, including those with high organic and lignocellose contents

As part of the Swiss Kangaroo Goes Science program, we made a video about our work in the lab for young girls in 7th grade to get motivated about their future in STEM!

Bringing together 13 leading experts from a wide diversity of expertise and 61 motivated students, we had a fun and intense week in Athens!

How effective are drinking water treatment plants at removing nanoplastics from surface waters? Check out our latest study to learn more!

As the Swiss member of the Management Comittee and the co-leader of two working groups for the COST Action Priority (WG 4: nanoplastics, WG 6: analytical standardization), we share our vision of how to progress this COST Action over the next four years!

Very excited for Dr. Alice Pradel to start working in the ECAM group this week after winning the ETH Postdoc Fellowship! Congrats again, Alice! Looking forward to studying nanoplastics entrapment in ice, fun in the lab, and fun in the Alps over these next two years!

Our grant was funded and looking forward to work with an excellent group of researchers across Europe in the next years. Stay tuned for a Ph D position opening in Zürich fall 2022....

After many years, our "side project" of assessing nanoplastics uptake and impacts on wheat plants is finally published! We got to expand our suite of analytical methods to study plastics and understand the effects of this exposure route much better

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!