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Trent Ph.D. Candidate Wins Big in Spain

Environmental and Life Sciences graduate student Daniel Rearick awarded top prize at international conference for presentation on his research into silver nanoparticles

Trent Ph.D. Candidate Wins Big in Spain
Trent Ph.D. Candidate Wins Big in Spain

From bandages and gym socks to cosmetics and nearly everything in between, silver nanoparticles are everywhere and  Trent Environmental and Life Science’s Ph.D. Candidate Daniel Rearick believes this could pose a serious threat to the environment.

For his research in this topic, Mr. Rearick recently received the Outstanding Student Presentation Award at the 2015 Association for the Sciences of Limnology and Oceanography (ASLO) Aquatic Sciences Meeting in Granada, Spain held in February 2015. The award is given to the top seven per cent of student presentations at the conference.  This year there was 318 student applicants and more than 1000 attendees from around the world.

Mr. Rearick’s presentation titled, “An ecosystem-scale experiment: Fate and Effects of Silver Nanoparticles Following Whole-Lake Addition at the Experimental Lakes Area,” was an exploration into his research studying the effects of nanosilver on a lake ecosystem at the Experimental Lakes Area in Northwestern Ontario.

As a Ph.D. Candidate in Dr. Maggie Xenopoulos' lab, Mr. Rearick is looking at lower trophic level responses (bacteria and algae) as well as the fate of nanosilver in the environment. He studies the fate of nanosilver temporally across a spatial gradient in order to understand how persistent the particles are in the water column, which may affect their toxicity to organisms.

“Nanosilver is increasing environmentally in aquatic systems and will likely continue to do so,” explained Mr. Rearick. “One of nanosilver's important properties is that it is an antimicrobial, thus we expect bacteria to be more affected at environmental concentrations and conditions rather than other species such as fish.”

Due to their antimicrobial properties, silver nanoparticles are found in hundreds of consumer products from bandages to gym socks to cosmetics. When the products that contain nanosilver are used the nanoparticles are released and many enter into aquatic systems via wastewater effluent. Potentially, consequences could affect nutrient cycling or other ecosystem functions. In order to understand the environmental relevance of increasing nanosilver, long-term studies incorporating environmental complexity are needed to enhance current knowledge beyond laboratory findings. Previous studies indicate toxicity can occur but it is not known if these results are persistent as they approach environmental situations. Mr. Rearick’s research focuses on such approaches.

To continue his research, Mr. Rearick is returning to the Experimental Lakes Area this summer to repeat exposure of nanosilver to the lake.

Posted on Wednesday, May 6, 2015.

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