Nanoparticles hundreds times smaller than the width of a hair are more and more a part of people’s daily lives. Used in everything from car coatings to clothes to cosmetics, little is known about their safety in the environment.<\/p>\n
Chemist Robert Hamers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison is leading a multi-institutional effort to gain new understanding about nanomaterials, especially how they get into cells and tiny organisms such as those found in freshwater lakes.<\/p>\n
A Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory scientist, Galya Orr has been using and improving high resolution microscopy at EMSL, DOE’s Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory at PNNL. She will be applying the expertise she’s gained from studying how nanoparticles enter lung cells found lining our airways.<\/p>\n
Orr is also a member of PNNL’s NIEHS Center for Nanotoxicology<\/a>, one of five NIH-funded groups nationally that seeks to understand how manmade nanomaterials interact with biological tissues<\/a>.<\/p>\n