This visit has been conducted within BRIDGE I: Collaboration between developers of computational and empirical methods for risk assessment.
During a series of meetings and personal discussions we have exchanged information on the progress in the development of computational and experimental methods within NanoBRIDGES project.
We have discussed further plans related to joint collaboration (after the termination of NanoBRIDGES project) and the requirements related to the experiments to ensure that data produced by the experimental team would be useful to develop computational (Nano-read across) models.
By visiting laboratories in the center we extended our knowledge on the origin of the data, i.e., how the data are produced step-by-step and what eventual problems originating from the experiments that have a potential impact on the computations would be. read more >>
I have visited Jackson State University, Jackson, Mississippi, USA for 4 months (from 11 of July to 14 of November 2014). The secondment was conducted within Work Package 2: Carrying out experiments to produce necessary (missing) data for nanoparticles.
My research focused on the removal properties of titanium oxide doped by sulfur and conjugated with appetites (hydroxyapatite and fluorapatite): materials preparation, characterization and study of metal adsorption and chemical pollutants degradation. The analyzed materials seem to be good solution who combine the properties of both type of particles HAP/FAP capable to adsorption the metal ions from the water solution and TiO2/TiO2:S having the great photocatalytic activities. The second aim of my research was collecting the experimental data for selected different types of Carbon Nanotubes to prepare exact characteristics and development useful descriptors for future research activity. During the visit I was have also interesting QSAR method training. read more >>
I have visited Jackson State University (USA) between 18 of June to 17 of August. I was working within Work Package 3 Development of novel structural descriptors for nanoparticles. However the work in Dr Leszczynski Group from the Interdisciplinary Center of Nanotoxicity was so fruitful for my research career that I used the opportunity to extend my visit at JSU to 5 months.
Thanks to cooperation with Dr Leszczynski and his team I greatly expanded my knowledge about the Density Functional Theory modeling. With their help I learned how to design proper models in perspective of their expected purpose. I also learned how to used computational methods to calculate physical chemical properties of solid states, especially of TiO2(anatase) supported Au8 clusters. read more >>
Thanks to the NanoBRIDGES project I had an amazing opportunity to spent three months (15.07.2014-13.10.2014) in National Institute for Environmental Studies in Tsukuba (Japan). The goal of my project was to determine the level of toxicity of various nanomaterials against E. Coli bacterial cells.
The toxicity level determination was possible thanks to minimal inhibitory concentration (MIC) and inhibition zone tests. Tested nanomaterials were based on Ti2O and doped with such elements as silver, gold, platinum and palladium. It appears that from among ninety tested nanomaterials those containing silver show the highest probability of toxicity occurrence. read more >>
I have visited University of Gdansk, Poland, for six months (2.03.2014 to 27.08.2014) working on work package (WP) 4 (Development of novel NanoQSAR methodologies) and 5 (Development of a grouping and read across platform for nanoparticles). The visit was really very fruitful; it helped me a lot in improving the software development skills as well as understanding the basic concepts/algorithms in QSAR/nano-QSAR model development process and validation. In this six month, I have built 6 standalone software tools including nano-Profiler and a database consisting of all the nano-QSAR models (reported/published till now). read more >>
