Wadsworth Center scientist Dr. Kurunthachalam Kannan, Deputy Director of the Division of Environmental Health Sciences (DEHS) and Chief of the Laboratory of Organic Analytical Chemistry, delivered a prestigious invited plenary lecture at the Microplastics in Focus conference held in Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia, on November 27-28, 2025. Dr. Kannan opened the conference with his plenary address, “Human Exposure to Microplastics: Methodological Considerations, Exposure Doses, and Health Effects,” providing a comprehensive overview of global plastic pollution, human exposure pathways, analytical challenges, biological accumulation, and emerging evidence of health risks.
Global production of plastics exceeds 450 million tons annually, with projections this will triple by 2060. More than half of all plastic waste is discarded or mismanaged, breaking down into microplastics – particles less than 5 mm in size – that permeate the oceans, land, food and water supply, and atmosphere. Dr. Kannan highlighted alarming new research, including a Nature Medicine study reporting microplastics comprising up to 5% of brain tissue in dementia patients and a New England Journal of Medicine study identifying microplastics embedded in arterial plaques. Such findings underscore growing international concern regarding microplastics as a public health threat.
Microplastics have now been detected in drinking water, ambient air, seafood, table salt, honey, sugar, bottled beverages, and more. Particles under 20 micrometers – including nanoplastics (<1,000 nm) – are capable of crossing cellular membranes and accumulating in organs. Studies have documented microplastics in the lungs, brain, blood, liver, kidneys, heart, spleen, colon, reproductive tissues, placenta, and even in infants’ first stools. Dr. Kannan summarized evidence linking exposure to dementia, Alzheimer’s disease, stroke, inflammatory bowel disease, and reduced semen quality, among others. These findings highlight the urgent need for improved methods to measure, trace, and assess the health effects of micro- and nanoplastics.
For more than two decades, Dr. Kannan’s laboratory has been a global leader in human biomonitoring, securing tens of millions of dollars in federal funding to advance analytical capacity for exposure science. His laboratory made the first-ever detection of microplastics in infant feces and is pioneering a method for nanoplastics detection in human tissue.
Attendance at this international conference elevated Wadsworth Center’s visibility and strengthened connections with global experts and health agencies. Notably, Dr. Kannan was approached by a program manager from the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) – a federal agency supporting high-impact biomedical innovation – to discuss strategic research opportunities in microplastics. ARPA-H and other federal agencies are expected to expand investments in microplastics research in coming years, and the Wadsworth Center is well positioned to attract major funding due to its scientific leadership.
Dr. Kannan’s plenary lecture reflects the Wadsworth Center’s growing prominence in environmental health science and its critical contributions to advancing analytical methods that support evidence-based public health policy and regulatory action.