Webinar title: Designing Efficient and Functional Nanocarriers to Promote Sustainable and Resilient Agriculture

Speaker: Prof. Gregory V. Lowry

Webinar time: 9:00 am, November 15, 2023 (Wednesday)

Venue: Room 200, New Environmental Building; Tencent Meeting 223-909-558, Password 231115

Inviter: Hao Li, Lizhi Zhang

Abstract:

There is a pressing need to improve the resilience and sustainability of agriculture in a rapidly changing climate. Polymeric nanocarriers can be engineered for efficient uptake and translocation following foliar application. However, the design space for nanocarriers is extensive, and optimizing their design requires better understanding of how the nanocarrier properties affect nanomaterial-plant interactions as these interactions determine how they travel through plants, how they respond to environmental and biological cues to release an AI payload, and their ultimate fate. This talk will present different materials for nanocarriers designs and processes for making them, and will highlight what we know and do not know about the factors influencing their uptake into leaves, mesophyll cells, and phloem, and subsequent distribution to other plant tissues, e.g. roots, stem, younger leaves. Overall, this body of work helps to provide design rules for new materials that can provide precision and timed delivery of agrochemicals to plants.

About the speaker:

Gregory V. Lowry is a University (Distinguished) Professor and the Walter J. Blenko, Sr. Professor of Civil & Environmental Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University. He is currently an executive and associate editor of the ACS Journal of Environmental Science & Technology. He is a Fellow of the American Academy for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). His award-winning transdisciplinary research in environmental chemistry and nanotechnology, including applications of machine learning and artificial intelligence, is addressing important global sustainability challenges in agriculture, environmental remediation and energy production.