UC CEIN Mission Statement
André Nel, Director
Arturo Keller, Associate Director
The mission of the University of California Center for Environmental Implications of Nanotechnology (UC CEIN) is to use a multidisciplinary approach to conduct research, knowledge acquisition, education and outreach to ensure the responsible use and safe implementation of nanotechnology in the environment. This will allow the USA and International Communities to leverage the benefits of nanotechnology to the benefit of the global economy, society and the environment. This mission is being accomplished by the development of environmental decision making tools that consider the importance of engineered nanomaterial (ENM) physicochemical properties in determining environmental fate, transport, exposure, and hazard generation across a wide spectrum of nano/bio interfaces in cells, bacteria, organisms, communities and ecosystems. The Center makes use of well-characterized compositional and combinatorial ENM libraries to study their fate and transport in parallel with the materials' bioavailability and potential to engage toxicological pathways in organisms and environmental life forms. Where possible, this exploration involves high throughput screening (HTS) to explore structure-activity relationships (SARs) that can be used for prediction making of primary ENMs' impact on organisms in freshwater, seawater, and terrestrial environments. In silico data transformation and decision-making tools are involved in data integration to provide hazard ranking, exposure modeling, risk profiling, and construction of nano-SARs. These research activities are combined with educational programs that inform the public, students, federal and state agencies, as well as industrial stakeholders of the impact of CEIN’s research on the safe implementation of nanotechnology in the environment.
Funded by a cooperative agreement from the National Science Foundation and the Environmental Protection Agency (NSF DBI-0830117), the UC CEIN is housed within the California NanoSystems Institute (CNSI) at UCLA, with a second major hub at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
To see/download March 2012 progress summary (1.15MB pdf) CEIN Year 4 Progress Summary Report
To see/download research highlights from 2012 Annual Report
(3.88MB) CEIN Research Highlights 2012
To see/download research highlights from annual report (2.8MB pdf) CEIN Research Highlights 2011
To see/download annual report (5.5MB pdf) CEIN Annual Report 2011
To see/download annual report (3MB pdf) CEIN Annual Report 2010
To see/download annual report (7MB pdf) CEIN Annual Report 2009
