Professor Iseult Lynch PhD, MBA

Professor Iseult Lynch

School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences
Professor of Environmental Nanosciences
Theme lead for Environmental Sciences

Contact details

Telephone
+44 (0)121 414 5532
Email
i.lynch@bham.ac.uk
View my research portal
Address
School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences
University of Birmingham
Edgbaston
Birmingham
B15 2TT
UK

Iseult Lynch is an Associate Editor for Environmental Science: Nano, and Deputy director for the Facility for Environmental Nanomaterials Analysis and Characterisation (FENAC) at the University of Birmingham.  Her research focuses on the environmental interactions of nanoparticles and nanostructured surfaces with biological entities from macromolecules to organisms.

She has a very broad overview of all aspects of nanomaterials safety assessment and the data requirements, having served as Chair of the EU Nanosafety Cluster Working Group (NSC WG) on databases for two years (and as co-Chair of the Hazed WG prior to that), as well as being theme editor for the Materials and classification section of the NSC Vision2020 research roadmap (under review for publication in June 2013). Prior to the University of Birmingham she was Strategic Research Manager at the Centre for BioNano Interactions in University College Dublin, where she was instrumental in the development and implementation of numerous large EU-funded projects.

Iseult is part of the Birmingham Plastics Network, an interdisciplinary team of more than 40 academics working together to shape the fate and sustainable future of plastics.  This unique team brings together chemists, environmental scientists, philosophers, linguists, economists, and experts in many other fields, to holistically address the global plastics problem.

Qualifications

BSc. (Hons) Chemistry (1995)

PhD (Chemistry, 2000)

MBA (2012)

Biography

Professor Iseult Lynch undertook her PhD in Physical Chemistry at University College Dublin developing responsive polymeric materials for use in medical devices and as tissue growth substrates. She subsequently did several years of postdoctoral research at Physical Chemistry 1, Lund University in Sweden, including as an EU Marie Curie Fellow, investigating several aspects of colloid and interface science and biophysics. She returned to University College Dublin in 2006 where she led the nanoparticle synthesis and bio-characterisation group at the Centre for BioNano Interactions (CBNI). She then became the Strategic Research Manager for CBNI, and was instrumental in securing multiple large scale national and EU funding bids. In March 2013 she joined the University of Birmingham as a Lecturer in Environmental Nanosciences, becoming Senior Lecturer in 2015 and Professor of Environmental Nanosciences in 2016.

Teaching

Professor Lynch is the undergraduate admissions tutor for Environmental Science.

Leads and contributes to undergraduate modules on the following topics:

  • molecules and materials
  • environmental protection
  • environmental pollution

Deputy director of the MRes in Biological and Environmental Nanoscience, and module leader for the MRes module 'Biological and Environmental Nanoscience'.

Postgraduate supervision

Professor Lynch supervises PhD projects on a range of environmental nanoscience topics, including:

  • interactions of engineered nanoparticles with Daphnia and the secreted eco-corona
  • fate and transformation of silver nanoparticles in the environment
  • assessment of the micro- and nano-structure of Vietnamese biochars
  • routes of uptake of SPIONs in cells
  • impacts of microplastics on freshwater ecosystems

Interested students, including those with existing funding or applying for funding, should contact Professor Lynch by email to discuss potential projects.

Research

Research interests

  • Synthesis of novel composite polymeric materials for biomaterials and environmental applications, such as controlled release and delivery, environmental remediation and Nano(eco)toxicology.
  • Nanoparticle interactions with biomolecules in the environment (natural organic matter, secreted proteins, organic pollutants, etc.) – the “eco-corona” and secondary pollutant effects
  • Determination of the fate and behavior of nanomaterials in the environment
  • Development of high throughput screening applications: nano(eco)toxicology, bionanointeractions and assessment of environmental fate of nanomaterials.
  • Impact and risk assessment of nanomaterials / nanoproducts / nanomedicines.

Other activities

Publications

Recent publications

Article

Thakur, AK, Sathyamurthy, R, Ramalingam, V, Lynch, I, Sharshir, SW, Ma, Z, Poongavanam, G, Lee, S, Jeong, Y & Hwang, J-Y 2021, 'A case study of SARS-CoV-2 transmission behavior in a severely air-polluted city (Delhi, India) and the potential usage of graphene based materials for filtering air-pollutants and controlling/monitoring the COVID-19 pandemic', Environmental Science Processes and Impacts , vol. 23, no. 7, pp. 923-946. https://doi.org/10.1039/d1em00034a

Nel, HA, Chetwynd, AJ, Kelly, CA, Stark, C, Valsami-Jones, E, Krause, S & Lynch, I 2021, 'An untargeted thermogravimetric analysis-Fourier transform infrared-gas chromatography-mass spectrometry approach for plastic polymer identification', Environmental Science & Technology. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.est.1c01085

Papadiamantis, AG, Afantitis, A, Tsoumanis, A, Valsami-Jones, E, Lynch, I & Melagraki, G 2021, 'Computational enrichment of physicochemical data for the development of a ζ-potential read-across predictive model with Isalos Analytics Platform', NanoImpact, vol. 22, 100308. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.impact.2021.100308

Nel, HA, Chetwynd, AJ, Kelleher, L, Lynch, I, Mansfield, I, Margenat, H, Onoja, S, Goldberg Oppenheimer, P, Sambrook Smith, GH & Krause, S 2021, 'Detection limits are central to improve reporting standards when using Nile red for microplastic quantification', Chemosphere, vol. 263, 127953. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chemosphere.2020.127953

Cooper, RV, Hannah, DM, Krause, S & Lynch, I 2021, 'From water2me to water4all : Democratizing the discussion of global water futures through crowdsourcing of individual water values', Hydrological Processes, vol. 35, no. 5, e14134. https://doi.org/10.1002/hyp.14134

Zhang, P, Guo, Z, Monikh, FA, Lynch, I, Valsami-Jones, E & Zhang, Z 2021, 'Growing rice (Oryza sativa) aerobically reduces phytotoxicity, uptake, and transformation of CeO2 nanoparticles', Environmental Science and Technology, vol. 55, no. 13, pp. 8654-8664. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.est.0c08813

Saarimäki, LA, Federico, A, Lynch, I, Papadiamantis, AG, Tsoumanis, A, Melagraki, G, Afantitis, A, Serra, A & Greco, D 2021, 'Manually curated transcriptomics data collection for toxicogenomic assessment of engineered nanomaterials', Scientific Data, vol. 8, no. 1, 49. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-021-00808-y

Ellis, L-JA, Kissane, S, Hoffman, E, Valsami-Jones, E, Brown, JB, Colbourne, JK & Lynch, I 2021, 'Multigenerational exposure to nano‐TiO2 induces ageing as a stress response mitigated by environmental interactions', Advanced NanoBiomed Research. https://doi.org/10.1002/anbr.202000083

Editorial

Lynch, I, Afantitis, A, Greco, D, Dusinska, M, Banares, MA & Melagraki, G 2021, 'Editorial for the special issue From Nanoinformatics to Nanomaterials Risk Assessment and Governance', Nanomaterials, vol. 11, no. 1, 121. https://doi.org/10.3390/nano11010121

Review article

Mouchlis, VD, Afantitis, A, Serra, A, Fratello, M, Papadiamantis, AG, Aidinis, V, Lynch, I, Greco, D & Melagraki, G 2021, 'Advances in de novo drug design: from conventional to machine learning methods', International Journal of Molecular Sciences, vol. 22, no. 4, 1676. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms22041676

Wheeler, KE, Chetwynd, AJ, Fahy, KM, Hong, BS, Tochihuitl, JA, Foster, LA & Lynch, I 2021, 'Environmental dimensions of the protein corona', Nature Nanotechnology, vol. 16, no. 6, pp. 617-629. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41565-021-00924-1

Krause, S, Baranov, V, Nel, HA, Drummond, JD, Kukkola, A, Hoellein, T, Sambrook Smith, GH, Lewandowski, J, Bonnet, B, Packman, AI, Sadler, J, Inshyna, V, Allen, S, Allen, D, Simon, L, Mermillod-Blondin, F & Lynch, I 2021, 'Gathering at the top? Environmental controls of microplastic uptake and biomagnification in freshwater food webs', Environmental Pollution, vol. 268, no. Pt A, 115750. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envpol.2020.115750

Kukkola, A, Krause, S, Lynch, I, Sambrook Smith, GH & Nel, H 2021, 'Nano and microplastic interactions with freshwater biota - Current knowledge, challenges and future solutions', Environment International, vol. 152, 106504. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envint.2021.106504

Zhang, P, Guo, Z, Ullah, S, Melagraki, G, Afantitis, A & Lynch, I 2021, 'Nanotechnology and artificial intelligence to enable sustainable and precision agriculture', Nature Plants, vol. 7, pp. 864–876. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41477-021-00946-6

Bondarenko, O, Mortimer, M, Kahru, A, Feliu, N, Javed, I, Kakinen, A, Lin, S, Xia, T, Song, Y, Davis, TP, Lynch, I, Parak, WJ, Leong, DT, Ke, PC, Chen, C & Zhao, Y 2021, 'Nanotoxicology and nanomedicine: the Yin and Yang of nano-bio interactions for the new decade', Nano Today, vol. 39, 101184. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nantod.2021.101184

View all publications in research portal

Expertise

Nanomaterials in the environment (as well as food, cosmetics, consumer products, nanomedicines, nanopesticides etc.); nanomaterials transformations; nanomaterials fate and behaviour; nanomaterials eco/toxicology; Nanosafety assessment; nanoregulation; nanogovernance; Microplastics; nanoplastics; Open data

Culture and collections

Schools, institutes and departments

Services and facilities