Cole Matson, Environmental Implications of Nanotechnology: an integrated approach for investigating nanomaterial risk

Nanomaterials and nanotechnology are becoming increasingly important in our economy. As we move forward with these technologies, we need to ensure that we fully understand the potential hazards posed by these new materials. It is also important to understand how known hazards might be altered at the nano scale. Determining the fate and interactions of nanomaterials in complex environmental contexts is required to assess exposure and possible harm as well as to inform regulation. The Center for the Environmental Implications of NanoTechnology (CEINT) at Duke University was established to address the uncertainties in assessing environmental exposure, risk, and ecological implications of nanomaterials. CEINT unites world-class groups at four core universities, several US university partners, international collaborators, and government labs in a single vision: to elucidate general principles that determine nanomaterial behavior and translate this knowledge into the language of risk assessment to provide guidance in assessing existing and future concerns surrounding the environmental implications of nanomaterials.

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Dr. Cole W. Matson is the Executive Director of the Center for the Environmental Implications of NanoTechnology (CEINT), a NSF and EPA-funded center headquartered at Duke University. Dr. Matson is an environmental toxicologist specializing in the genetic effects of contaminants on wildlife. His research focus is currently the genetic and developmental impacts of nanomaterials on fish, with a particular interest in how environmental variables affect toxicity. Cole has published and presented environmental toxicology research for the last ten years, with projects covering a wide variety of organisms and stressors. His early work focused on the population genetic impacts of chronic contamination exposures and on biomarkers of DNA damage. More recent work has focused on mechanistic toxicology and embryonic developmental toxicity. Cole’s interest in nanomaterial toxicity is centered on environmentally relevant transformations of particles and how these transformations affect the toxicity of the particles, including separating particle toxicity from metal toxicity. Cole has previously conducted wildlife toxicology research within two Superfund Research Centers (Texas A&M University and Duke University), and has collaborated with a diverse group of academic, government, and foreign researchers.