TSU and IISER are studying microplastic in living beings
2022-03-21
Scientists from the TSU Biological Institute and Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER Kolkata) are studying the presence of microplastic in living organisms. Currently, they are analyzing the concentration and origin of microparticles in fish in two Russian rivers, the Tom and Nizhnyaya Tunguska.
Read more: https://en.tsu.ru/news/tsu-and-iiser-are-studying-microplastic-in-living-beings/
“The team led by Gopala Krishna Darbha focuses on how nano- and microparticles accumulate in living organisms and what effect it has on them, as well as developing cheap and effective technologies for cleaning pollution,” explains Julia Frank, director of the Center for Microplastics in the Environment of the TSU Biological Institute. “IISER Kolkata has cutting-edge equipment that ensures accurate results of the Raman microspectroscopy. It allows us to study microplastic in biological objects and, most importantly, identify the type of polymers discovered.”
As Julia Frank says, in Russia the analysis of microparticles in biosamples is still in the developmental stage, and therefore TSU biologists gladly accepted the proposal of colleagues from India to analyze the fish samples collected in Siberian rivers. The IISER laboratories studied samples of common dace. In the gastrointestinal tract of the fish they found microfibers and microfragments of polypropylene, PET, PVC and other polymers, whose source might be municipal wastewater and fragmentation of plastic trash in river waters.Read more: https://en.tsu.ru/news/tsu-and-iiser-are-studying-microplastic-in-living-beings/