NYU Tandon and NYU Grossman Launch Joint Research Center Dedicated to Engineering a Solution to Plastics
NYC Center for Healthier Plastic Solutions unites engineers, materials scientists, and medical researchers to understand how plastics harm human health and the environment, and to develop safer materials that don't.
NYU Tandon School of Engineering and NYU Grossman School of Medicine today announced the launch of their joint NYC Center for Healthier Plastic Solutions, the first research center in the United States dedicated to understanding the full range of health and environmental threats posed by plastics, and to developing new materials that curtail them.
Plastics production has grown exponentially since 1950 and is projected to increase another 30 percent by 2050. Recycling has failed to keep pace, and plant-based alternatives carry their own environmental costs.
Meanwhile, the health consequences are mounting.
Plastics shed microplastic fragments at a rate of 10 to 40 million metric tons per year, a figure projected to double by 2040, and release chemical additives and monomers linked to hormonal disruption, cancer, and cardiovascular and developmental harm. A 2025 study found microplastics in human brain tissue at concentrations 7 to 30 times higher than in other organs, with levels rising measurably between 2016 and 2024.
“Plastics in general, and microplastics specifically, are the source of potentially significant environmental and public health challenges, and finding solutions to those problems will require collaboration across engineering, medicine, policy, and industry,” said Juan de Pablo, NYU's Anne and Joel Ehrenkranz Executive Vice President for Global Science, Executive Dean of NYU Tandon, and a Center faculty member whose work uses computer modeling to understand and design plastic materials at the molecular level. “This Center positions New York City — and NYU — as a hub for developing practical, scalable solutions to a global problem.”
“NYU Langone Health is excited to partner with NYU Tandon to support important science-based research into the health impacts of microplastics, as part of our shared commitment to solutions that advance global health,” said Alec C. Kimmelman, MD, PhD, dean of NYU Grossman School of Medicine and CEO of NYU Langone Health. “This work will be supported by more than a dozen active research projects at the NYU Grossman School of Medicine and nearly $20 million in funding underway in 2026.”
The Center’s labs will rapidly produce and test hundreds of new plastic formulations at once, including materials made from non-petroleum sources. Researchers will expose those materials to the same forces that break plastics down in the real world, including physical wear, chemical exposure, and heat, and AI will analyze the results in real time to predict which materials are safest and guide the next round of experiments.
“We know microplastics are building up in the environment and in our bodies, even as many questions about their long-term effects remain unresolved,” said Miguel Modestino, Donald F. Othmer Associate Professor of Chemical Engineering at NYU Tandon, co-director of the Center and director of Tandon’s Sustainable Engineering Initiative. “Rather than waiting for perfect answers, we will design materials that preserve the benefits of plastics and minimize the generation of persistent microplastic waste, and use AI and automation to speed up that NYU discovery process.”
“Microplastics and chemicals in plastics are known to contribute to a broad array of conditions that span the life course, costing nearly $250 billion in disease annually,” said Leonardo Trasande, MD, MPP, the Center’s other co-director and the Jim G. Hendrick, MD, Professor of Pediatrics at NYU Grossman School of Medicine. “This is why it is important for physicians, biochemical scientists, and engineers to work together to develop solutions that will help us keep the next generation healthy.”
Trasande is also a professor of population health, director of environmental pediatrics, and director of NYU Langone’s Center for the Investigation of Environmental Hazards.
The Center’s 16-member faculty roster includes LaShanda Korley, one of the nation’s leading researchers in sustainable polymer design, who joined Tandon this fall as Chair of the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering. Korley came from the University of Delaware, where she continues to direct the Department of Energy-funded Center for Plastics Innovation.
The launch is the latest in a series of NYU’s problem-focused research structures designed to cut across disciplinary boundaries. In October 2025, NYU Tandon launched the Urban Institute, uniting engineering, data science, and public policy around the challenges of city life, the same month that NYU launched its Quantum Institute, coordinating research across physics, materials science, and computer science.
Both followed the debut of the Institute for Engineering Health, which brings together expertise in translational biosciences from Tandon and Langone Health/Grossman School of Medicine, in collaboration with NYU’s College of Arts and Sciences, School of Dentistry, and Courant Institute School of Mathematics, Computing, and Data Science.
