Tracking Microplastics and Nanoplastics Using Laser-Based Imaging Technique

The SciX 2026 Conference is set to take place from October 4–9, 2026, at the Nugget Casino Resort in Sparks, Nevada. During the conference, there will be several sessions dedicated to presenting recent research in environmental analysis, including how laser-based techniques are being used to track microplastics and nanoparticles.¹

One of these talks, titled “Back to the Future of Bioimaging: Laser Tracking of Microplastics and Nanoparticles in Living Systems,” will be delivered by Michaela Kuchynka, an assistant professor at Masaryk University in Brno, Czech Republic.^1,2 Kuchynka’s talk will present new applications of a laser-based elemental imaging technique that allows scientists to track the movement of nanoparticles and microplastics through biological tissue at microscopic resolution.²

What will Kuchynka’s talk at SciX cover?

Currently, researchers are exploring the question of where foreign particles go once they enter a living organism. Kuchynka’s talk is designed to address this problem. In addition, Kuchynka’s talk will discuss how her team looked at determining whether the particles were engineered for medical treatment or accumulated as environmental pollution.²

What did Kuchynka and her team’s research cover?

Part of Kuchynka and her team’s research focused on biodegradable iodinated nanoparticles (IoNPs), which are being developed as theranostic agents for ischemic stroke.² Before such particles can move toward clinical use, researchers need detailed data on how they travel through and clear from the body.²

So the next question became how to generate that data. Ultimately, Kuchynka and her team opted to build a new multimodal platform that paired computed tomography (CT) with LA-ICP-MS elemental mapping.² This coupling allowed pharmacokinetic and biodistribution data to be layered onto anatomical imaging.² Because aligning two separate imaging data sets by hand is time-consuming and prone to error, the team also incorporated artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) algorithms to automatically identify and register corresponding tissue structures across the two modalities.²

Kuchynka will expand what these modifications resulted in, and that was a more precise spatial correlation between where the nanoparticles physically accumulate and the anatomical context surrounding them, which is a link that is difficult to establish reliably using either imaging method alone.²

What was the other aspect to Kuchynka and her team’s work?

The second application area extends the same core technique to environmental toxicology, specifically the study of how nanoplastics and microplastics move through and accumulate in living organisms.² LA-ICP-MS has proven effective at visualizing plastic particle uptake and distribution in biological tissue at the microscale, which was the rationale for the researchers employing the technique in their approach here.²

The team’s approach relied on tracking metal content associated with the plastics. In some cases, researchers use metals already present within the plastic material itself.² In other cases, particles were deliberately doped with metal-organic complexes containing europium, iridium, or platinum, creating a marker that LA-ICP-MS can detect and map.² Using these methods, the team documented the distinct accumulation patterns in both plant and animal models.²

In addition, the researchers used micro-computed tomography (µCT) to enable three-dimensional (3D) reconstruction and volumetric segmentation of particle distribution within tissue.²

Why should spectroscopists should attend this talk?

Kuchynka’s presentation will highlight the utility of LA-ICP-MS, demonstrating that the technique can be used in more applications than elemental analysis. Kuchynka will explain how it can be combined with CT, µCT, and machine-learning (ML)-driven image registration, which has implications for drug developers working on nanoparticle-based theranostics.² Kuchynka’s platform offers a method for generating the biodistribution evidence regulators and clinical teams require before advancing candidates like IoNPs toward human use.²

Kuchynka’s presentation will take place on Tuesday October 6 from 1:50 to 2:10 pm in the Cascade 3 ballroom.

References

1. Wetzel, W.; Spectroscopy Staff. Previewing the Upcoming 2026 SciX Conference. Spectroscopy Online, 2026. https://www.spectroscopyonline.com/view/previewing-the-upcoming-2026-scix-conference (accessed September 17, 2026).
2. Kuchynka, M. ML Back to the Future of Bioimaging: Laser Tracking of Microplastics and Nanoparticles in Living Systems. Presented at the SciX 2026 Conference, Sparks, Nevada, October 6, 2026. Available at: https://www.scixconference.org/onlineprogram