Improving polymer-encapsulated nanoparticle assembly and delivery towards applications in agriculture, with positive environmental impact

Nanoparticles are objects on the scale of billionths of a meter, and their small size gives them properties that are scientifically interesting and commercially important. Vive Crop Protection has commercialized a technology in which they use a nanoparticle-enabled approach to enhance the delivery of agricultural pesticides. This project is about controlling the process of clumping nanoparticles together to form larger structures, on the micron scale (millionths of a meter); this makes them easier to handle. Profs McMillen and Goh work in synthetic biology and nanoscience (respectively), and will investigate ways of extending existing methods in two main ways: (1) Creating new forms of polymer-encapsulated nanoparticle (PENs), to control how they interact with each other and with biological cells; and (2) Engineering yeast to act as attachment scaffolds for the PENs, creating a more environmentally-friendly analog to functionalized beads can be used to grow self-replicating micron-scale attachment centres for the PENs.

Faculty Supervisor:

David McMillen;Cynthia Goh

Student:

Partner:

Vive Crop Protection Inc.

Discipline:

Physics

Sector:

Agriculture

University:

University of Toronto

Program: