Philip Busbee
University of South Carolina-Columbia, SC·Microbiology & Immunology
Microplastics are tiny plastic particles shed as plastic products break down. People swallow them every day.
- Fields
Microbiology & Immunology
Neuroscience
Pharmacology
- Topics
microplastics
inflammatory bowel disease
ulcerative colitis
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Aug 2028
What they work on
- Test whether eating microplastics of different sizes worsens depression-like behavior and markers of brain inflammation in mice with colitis induced by dextran sodium sulfate (DSS), a model of ulcerative colitis.
- Develop a method to visualize and quantify where microplastics accumulate in organs of mice with active colitis, using tissue clearing and light sheet fluorescence microscopy (LSFM).
- Determine whether microplastic consumption makes colitis more severe and increases particle spread into other organs when the intestinal barrier is weakened.
More about the research
Once inside the body, they can spread to many organs and trigger inflammation, including in the brain. They can also damage the gut lining, which may affect mood and behavior through the gut-brain axis, the two-way communication between the digestive system and the brain. Little is known about what happens when microplastics meet a gut that is already damaged by disease. This project studies that question in inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). IBD is a group of chronic inflammatory conditions that make the gut "leaky" and are often accompanied by depression.
Why it matters
Microplastic exposure is widespread. People with inflammatory bowel diseases such as ulcerative colitis may be especially vulnerable because their gut barrier is already weakened. This work could show whether microplastics worsen gut disease, brain inflammation and depression in this group. It could also provide a method to track where microplastics build up in organs, informing future health risk research.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Eliseo Castillo
University of New Mexico, NM·Microbiology & Immunology
Determine how varying doses and types of microplastic particles alter intestinal permeability, meaning leakiness of the gut lining, using a zebrafish exposure model.
Theresa Torres Pizarro
Case Western Reserve University, OH·Microbiology & Immunology
Identify the cell types in subepithelial ST2+ patches, cells that respond to the signaling molecule IL-33 and sit over colon polyps, in AOM/DSS-treated and Winnie mice, and test their function in tissue outside the body.
Ting Fu
University of Wisconsin-Madison, WI·Microbiology & Immunology
Determine how host- and microbe-derived bile acids generated during inflammation and tumor growth shape gut macrophages and their crosstalk with T cells and intestinal stem cells.
The school
University of South Carolina-Columbia: 22 labs on PI Pages, $277M a year on research, 425 research doctorates a year.
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