medical research salary us

Medical Researcher salary

Average medical researcher salary, how much does a medical researcher make.

The average medical researcher salary in the United States is $61,177. Medical researcher salaries typically range between $35,000 and $106,000 yearly. The average hourly rate for medical researchers is $29.41 per hour. Medical researcher salary is impacted by location, education, and experience. Medical researchers earn the highest average salary in New Jersey.

Where can a Medical Researcher earn more?

Medical researcher salary estimates from across the web, average medical researcher salary by state.

The average medical researcher salary in New Jersey, California, and Massachusetts are the highest in the U.S. The lowest average medical researcher salary states are Texas, Georgia, and South Carolina.

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Highest paying states for medical researchers

Highest paying cities for medical researchers

The highest-paying cities for medical researchers are San Francisco, CA, Edison, NJ, and Newburgh, NY.

Medical Researcher salary details

A medical researcher's salary ranges from $35,000 a year at the 10th percentile to $106,000 at the 90th percentile.

What is a medical researcher's salary?

Highest paying medical researcher jobs

The highest paying types of medical researchers are medical science liaison, principal scientist, and senior scientist.

Top companies hiring medical researchers now:

• American Red Cross Jobs (2)
• Westat Jobs (4)
• Rose Medical Center Jobs (2)
• Baptist Health Home Care Jobs (8)
• Cleveland Clinic Jobs (4)

Which companies pay medical researchers the most?

Medical researcher salaries at Rose Medical Center and Baptist Health South Florida are the highest-paying according to our most recent salary estimates. In addition, the average medical researcher salary at companies like UCSF Health and Cleveland Clinic are highly competitive.

Wage gap by gender, race and education

Medical researcher salary by industry.

The average medical researcher salary varies across industries:

• The average medical researcher salary in the health care industry is $84,403, the highest of any industry.
• The average medical researcher salary in the finance industry is $80,639.
• Medical researchers in the technology industry earn an average salary of $57,431, the lowest of any industry.

Highest paying industries for medical researchers

High Paying Medical Researcher Jobs

Medical researcher salary trends.

The average medical researcher salary has risen by $10,282 over the last ten years. In 2014, the average medical researcher earned $50,895 annually, but today, they earn $61,177 a year. That works out to a 14% change in pay for medical researchers over the last decade.

Compare medical researcher salaries for cities or states with the national average over time.

Average medical researcher salary over time

Compare medical researcher salaries for individual cities or states with the national average.

Medical Researcher salary by year

Recently added medical researcher salaries

Medical Researcher salary FAQs

What state pays medical researchers the most, how do i know if i'm being paid fairly as a medical researcher.

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Medical Researcher Related Salaries

• Associate Research Scientist Salary
• Associate Scientist Salary
• Doctoral Fellow Salary
• Fellow Salary
• Laboratory Researcher Salary
• Medical Science Liaison Salary
• PHD Researcher Salary
• Postdoctoral Associate Salary
• Postdoctoral Research Associate Salary
• Postdoctoral Scholar Salary
• Principal Scientist Salary
• Research And Development Scientist Salary
• Research Fellow Salary
• Research Laboratory Manager Salary
• Research Scientist Salary

Medical Researcher Related Careers

• Associate Research Scientist
• Associate Scientist
• Doctoral Fellow
• Laboratory Researcher
• Medical Science Liaison
• PHD Researcher
• Postdoctoral Associate
• Postdoctoral Research Associate
• Postdoctoral Scholar
• Principal Scientist
• Research And Development Scientist
• Research Fellow
• Research Laboratory Manager
• Research Scientist

Medical Researcher Related Jobs

• Senior Research Fellow
• Senior Scientist

What Similar Roles Do

• What Does an Associate Research Scientist Do
• What Does an Associate Scientist Do
• What Does a Doctoral Fellow Do
• What Does a Fellow Do
• What Does a Laboratory Researcher Do
• What Does a Medical Science Liaison Do
• What Does an PHD Researcher Do
• What Does a Postdoctoral Associate Do
• What Does a Postdoctoral Research Associate Do
• What Does a Postdoctoral Scholar Do
• What Does a Principal Scientist Do
• What Does a Research And Development Scientist Do
• What Does a Research Fellow Do
• What Does a Research Laboratory Manager Do
• What Does a Research Scientist Do
• Zippia Careers
• Life, Physical, and Social Science Industry
• Medical Researcher
• Medical Researcher Salary

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Salary for Industry: Medical Research

Medical Research Jobs by Salary

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Industries in the same category as Medical Research, ranked by salary

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY IN THE CITY OF NEW YORK

Clinical Research Coordinator I

• Obstetrics and Gynecology
• Columbia University Medical Center
• Opening on: Jun 8 2024
• Job Type: Officer of Administration
• Bargaining Unit:
• Regular/Temporary: Regular
• End Date if Temporary:
• Hours Per Week: 35
• Standard Work Schedule:
• Salary Range: $63,000 - $66,000

Position Summary

The primary role of this position is to support clinical research involving Maternal Fetal Medicine Research. The employee will interact with pregnant women, their families and clinical staff as it relates to clinical research protocols and clinical trials, industry funded and grant funded,  being implemented in the inpatient setting. The inpatient setting includes labor and delivery, ante-partum and post-partum.  

Responsibilities

• Completion of GCP, HIPAA and applicable regulatory training.
• Complete certification requirements for assigned protocols.
• Screen designated schedules or patient lists for eligible subjects.
• Contact, approach and verify eligibility subjects; and screen, enroll and consent eligible subjects.
• Complete research study visits as delineated in assigned protocol and manual of operations set forth by sponsor and supervisor.
• Complete telephone follow-up and telephone reminder calls for study participants, during these phone calls the person will need to administer study questionnaire as assigned.
• Coordinate the collection of all research data points as assigned, whether through research visits, chart abstraction or telephone.
• Schedule of research visits; enter research data into a centralized database program and other study specific electronic databases.
• Collect through venipuncture, process, track, transport and ship biological specimens (including birth specimens) as assigned and by steps delineated in the protocol or manual of operations.
• Complete study documents and files some examples might include case report forms, worksheets and medical record notes.
• Maintain confidentiality of documents and files such as HIPPA.
• Inform relevant clinical staff regarding subject protocol participation.
• Assist in other research related activities and projects as needed.
• Collaborate regularly with the investigators and other research staff.
• Consult with medical records of outlying clinics and hospitals to obtain pertinent data and patient information.
• Perform other related duties and responsibilities as assigned/requested.

Minimum Qualifications

• Requires a bachelor's degree or equivalent in education and experience.
• Phlebotomy certificate (required or to be obtained w/n 3 mo of hire).
• Complete proficiency in written and spoken English and Spanish.
• Incumbent must be self-directed and able to make independent decision within the parameters of all federal, state, institutional and departmental guidelines.
• Excellent interpersonal, written/oral communication, and organizational skills.  
• Ability to work night shift 11pm-7am after training period.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience in a patient care setting and clinical research experience.
• Proficiency in Microsoft Office.
• Master’s or another advanced degree may substitute in part for experience.

The Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology is dedicated to the goal of building a multicultural faculty and staff committed to teaching, working and serving in a diverse community, and strongly encourages applications from candidates of traditionally underrepresented backgrounds.

We are continuously seeking to recruit individuals who will enhance the diversity of our workplace and the effectiveness of our organization.

Equal Opportunity Employer / Disability / Veteran

Columbia University is committed to the hiring of qualified local residents.

Commitment to Diversity 

Columbia university is dedicated to increasing diversity in its workforce, its student body, and its educational programs. achieving continued academic excellence and creating a vibrant university community require nothing less. in fulfilling its mission to advance diversity at the university, columbia seeks to hire, retain, and promote exceptionally talented individuals from diverse backgrounds.  , share this job.

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Cancer patients often do better with less intensive treatment, new research finds

FILE - In this May 25, 2017 file photo, chemotherapy drugs are administered to a patient at a hospital in Chapel Hill, N.C. Scaling back treatment in some cancers — ovarian, esophageal and Hodgkin lymphoma — can make life easier for patients without compromising outcomes, doctors reported at the American Society of Clinical Oncology annual meeting in early June 2024. (AP Photo/Gerry Broome, File)

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Scaling back treatment for three kinds of cancer can make life easier for patients without compromising outcomes, doctors reported at the world’s largest cancer conference.

It’s part of a long-term trend toward studying whether doing less — less surgery , less chemotherapy or less radiation — can help patients live longer and feel better. The latest studies involved ovarian and esophageal cancer and Hodgkin lymphoma.

Thirty years ago, cancer research was about doing more, not less. In one sobering example, women with advanced breast cancer were pushed to the brink of death with massive doses of chemotherapy and bone marrow transplants. The approach didn’t work any better than chemotherapy and patients suffered.

Now, in a quest to optimize cancer care, researchers are asking: “Do we need all that treatment that we have used in the past?”

It’s a question, “that should be asked over and over again,” said Dr. Tatjana Kolevska, medical director for the Kaiser Permanente National Cancer Excellence Program, who was not involved in the new research.

Often, doing less works because of improved drugs.

“The good news is that cancer treatment is not only becoming more effective, it’s becoming easier to tolerate and associated with less short-term and long-term complications,” said Dr. William G. Nelson of Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, who was also not involved in the new research.

Studies demonstrating the trend were discussed over the weekend at an American Society of Clinical Oncology conference in Chicago. Here are the highlights:

OVARIAN CANCER

French researchers found that it’s safe to avoid removing lymph nodes that appear healthy during surgery for advanced ovarian cancer. The study compared the results for 379 patients — half had their lymph nodes removed and half did not. After nine years, there was no difference in how long the patients lived and those with less-extreme surgery had fewer complications, such as the need for blood transfusions. The research was funded by the National Institute of Cancer in France.

ESOPHAGEAL CANCER

This German study looked at 438 people with a type of cancer of the esophagus that can be treated with surgery. Half received a common treatment plan that included chemotherapy and surgery on the esophagus, the tube that carries food from the throat to the stomach. Half got another approach that includes radiation too. Both techniques are considered standard. Which one patients get can depend on where they get treatment.

After three years, 57% of those who got chemo and surgery were alive, compared to 51% of those who got chemo, surgery and radiation. The German Research Foundation funded the study.

HODGKIN LYMPHOMA

A comparison of two chemotherapy regimens for advanced Hodgkin lymphoma found the less intensive treatment was more effective for the blood cancer and caused fewer side effects.

After four years, the less harsh chemo kept the disease in check in 94% of people, compared to 91% of those who had the more intense treatment. The trial included 1,482 people in nine countries — Germany, Austria, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Australia and New Zealand — and was funded by Takeda Oncology, the maker of one of the drugs used in the gentler chemo that was studied.

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW Washington, DC 20500

White   House Shares Government, Private Sector, Academic, and Non-Profit Actions to Accelerate Progress on Mental Health   Research

The United States is facing an unprecedented mental health crisis impacting Americans of all ages. To tackle this crisis, the Biden-Harris Administration has taken bold steps to transform how mental health is understood, accessed, and treated. Under President Biden’s Unity Agenda, the Biden-Harris Administration released a comprehensive mental health strategy and mental health research priorities . These steps aim to make mental health care more affordable and accessible and improve health outcomes for all Americans.  

As a part of Mental Health Awareness Month, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy called on government agencies, the private sector, nonprofit organizations, and academia to share the actions they are taking to expand and improve mental health research in the United States. These actions address key research priorities and move us closer to a future where every American has access to the best available care when and where they need it.

Government Actions

• The National Institutes of Health (NIH) Common Fund’s Community Partnerships to Advance Science for Society (ComPASS) Program announced 25 community-led research awards. The ComPASS program provides an unprecedented opportunity for communities to lead innovative intervention projects that study ways to address the underlying structural factors that affect health and health equity. Awards include research focused on addressing stigmatization of behavioral health and services and improving access to behavioral health services in Hispanic, low-income, rural, and LGBTQ+ communities.
• Accelerating Medicines Partnership® Program for Schizophrenia (AMP SCZ) released its first research data set — AMP SCZ 1.0 —through a collaboration of the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), the Foundation for NIH, the Food and Drug Administration, and multiple public and private partners. To improve the understanding of schizophrenia and to identify new and better targets for treatment, AMP SCZ established a research network that examines trajectories for people who are at clinical high risk for psychosis. The network also develops psychosis prediction algorithms using biomarkers, clinical data, and existing clinical high risk-related datasets.
• NIMH’s Individually Measured Phenotypes to Advance Computational Translation in Mental Health program is a new initiative focused on using behavioral measures and computational methods to define novel clinical signatures that can be used for individual-level prediction and clinical decision making in treating mental disorders . As one example of research supported through this initiative, researchers at the University of Washington are applying computational modeling strategies to behavioral data collected through a smartphone app, with the goal of predicting and preventing serious negative outcomes for people who experience hallucinations.
• NIMH awarded research grants to develop and test innovative psychosocial interventions to prevent suicide. Researchers at San Diego State, one of the grant recipients, are combining an existing intervention—the Safety Planning Intervention—with patient navigator services, and testing the effectiveness of this novel combined intervention in reducing suicide risk among sexual and gender minority youth and young adults.
• NIMH and the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development funded 11 new studies focused on understanding bidirectional relationships between social media use and adolescent mental illness, psychiatric symptoms, and risk or resilience for psychopathology . Collectively, this research aims to address important questions about the short-term and long-term interactions between social media behavior and youth mental health, as well as the mechanisms contributing to risk and resilience.

Private Sector, Academic, and Non-Profit Actions

• The University of California, Somos Esenciales, and Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital are conducting the Supporting Peer Interactions to Expand Access study, which examines digital mental health solutions in resource-limited settings, emphasizing cultural and linguistic inclusivity. This study examines a cognitive-behavioral therapy intervention for depression or anxiety for Latino patients with limited-English proficiency and tests implementation strategies, including support from community peers, to integrate this intervention into primary care.
• Headspace is launching a participatory research approach to better understand mental health needs. Headspace is partnering with the city of Hartford, Connecticut to provide mental health resources to all Hartford residents including free access to the Headspace app. This public-private partnership is the first of its kind to improve community-wide mental wellness while researching engagement with the Headspace app and the associated mental health outcomes.
• The Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) established a Mental and Behavioral Health Awards Program to champion integrated behavioral health (IBH) patient care models. The inaugural funding was awarded to Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, Georgetown University Medical Center, Texas A&M School of Medicine, and the University of California Davis School of Medicine for their innovative approaches to IBH team training and patient care, as well as their commitment to accessible and equitable whole person care. AAMC will summarize and disseminate lessons learned from these institutions to advance IBH across the health care delivery system.
• Unity Health Care established the $2.3 million J. Willard and Alice S. Marriott Foundation’s Behavioral Health Development Fund to train the next generation of IBH fellows. This program allows Unity to recruit and train the next generation of mental health providers, with a focus on models of care that expand access, improve outcomes, and drive health equity through IBH. The behavioral health providers work seamlessly with primary care providers to address unmet critical and looming mental health challenges with a culturally congruent approach.
• The American Association of Psychiatric Pharmacists is providing up to $500,000 to study the impact of integrating Board-Certified Psychiatric Pharmacists (BCPPs) into health care teams. BCPPs are advanced practice clinical pharmacists who provide Comprehensive Medication Management within team-based care focusing on medication optimization, evidence-based practices, and patient-centered goals. These research grants fund multiple sites and expand the number and quality of studies involving BCPPs.
• The Healthy Brains Global Initiative (HBGI), the Mental Health Services Oversight and Accountability Commission, and initially three counties in California, are implementing performance-based pilot programs to improve outcomes for people living with serious mental illnesses. These pilots are testing reimbursement for achieving health, housing, and wellbeing outcomes while strengthening the performance management of existing Full Service Partnership (FSP) services. FSP programs intend to be comprehensive services for individuals who are unhoused and who are experiencing severe mental illness.
• The NIH-funded RAND-USC Schaeffer Opioid Policy Tools and Information Center (OPTIC) is building evidence to guide policy responses to the opioid crisis. RAND and the University of Southern California lead OPTIC, a collaboration of eight research institutions, to create national resources to guide policy responses to the opioid crisis. OPTIC develops and disseminates information on policy effectiveness overall and in diverse, structurally disadvantaged communities, improved tools and methods for assessing policy effects, and strategies for addressing the opioid crisis.
• Insight is opening a new medical-psychiatric hospital to serve the community disproportionately burdened by the Flint Water Crisis with a $2.5 million grant from the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services. The hospital and services are being designed to transform how behavioral health is understood, accessed, treated, and integrated with medical and community services. Research at the hospital will focus on advancing equity in access to behavioral health services, developing treatments for serious illnesses, and supporting youth mental health.
• RAND and Active Minds are evaluating how Send Silence Packing®, the country’s largest traveling campus-based mental health literacy and suicide prevention exhibit, affects college students’ knowledge, behaviors, and stigma around mental health. Findings will guide scalability, resource allocation and decision-making on college campuses and efforts to optimize peer-informed actions to support student mental health and well-being.
• The Child Mind Institute (CMI) is leveraging over $150M from partnerships with the Stavros Niarchos Foundation and the State of California to expand mental health care access for youth in marginalized communities worldwide. CMI utilizes evidence-based, culturally adapted educational resources, provider training, and scalable, innovative, open-source digital technologies for mental health assessment and intervention. The Youth Mental Health Academy recruits a diverse workforce by providing educational and internship experiences to 2,500 high school students from under-represented communities. The Healthy Brain Network openly shares diverse brain and behavior data from >7,000 participants for pediatric mental health and learning research.

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How to make money from medical research and donations

• You can make thousands of dollars by donating some time or body parts to science.
• But these procedures are not all painless, and not everyone can participate.
• Below is a short list, though be warned: these strategies aren't all easy money.

Get dysentery. Play cards with someone who has the flu . Or, spend 45 days trapped in a tiny apartment with three total strangers.

These are just a few of the many ways you can get paid for helping out with scientific research. If you want to aid the science community and potentially save some lives while making a little extra cash, there are some unconventional options to consider.

Below is a short list, though be warned: these strategies aren't all exactly easy money.

Sell your blood plasma

Payout (per donation): around $50

Plasma is the largest component in human blood. It's a protein-rich liquid that contains mostly water but is also filled with enzymes, antibodies, and salts. This gooey, sticky yellow-ish stuff can be used to create therapies that treat people with blood clotting disorders, autoimmune diseases, and even burn victims. Donating plasma is often called "the gift of life" since treatments for some conditions can't be made synthetically and require this kind of human contribution.

During plasma donation, blood is drawn and an automated machine separates the plasma from other blood components, which are returned to the donor. Plasma donation pay varies from site to site, but the average payout is typically around $50 per donation. You can donate safely roughly once a month, according to the American Red Cross , and a typical session takes less than two hours. Find a licensed and certified plasma center near you.

Donate your sex cells

Payout for eggs (per donation): usually $10,000 to $12,000;

Payout for sperm (per donation): typically $35-$150

Egg and sperm donation can allow couples who have trouble conceiving naturally to become parents by using a donor's sex cells. But the time commitment and risk involved in a woman's egg donation is far steeper than what a man goes through donating his sperm.

In the United States, egg donors generally net around $10,000-$12,000. Weill Cornell outlines the standard steps for egg donation , which requires about a four-week time commitment.

During the egg donation cycle, patients are injected with fertility drugs so that the ovaries make more mature eggs than normal. (Eligible women are generally between the ages of 21 and 30). The egg retrieval procedure takes about 20 minutes but may require several days of recovery. Donors should be aware of the risks involved (largely related to the hormones used) before signing up.

Men are generally paid anywhere from $35 to $150 per sperm donation, according to The Sperm Bank of California , but sperm donation can really start to add up if you regularly donate samples (many programs require a six-month or one-year donation commitment).

Donors should bear in mind that even if they choose to donate anonymously, sperm and egg donation is never really 100% incognito. Your DNA always knows who you are.

Spend 45 days on a fake spaceship

Payout: $160/day

Related stories

NASA will pay you to spend 45 days traveling in space. Well, sort of.

You'll actually be on the ground the whole time in Houston, Texas, but you'll be locked inside a model space capsule (650 square feet) along with three strangers. This simulation is designed to study what being cooped up for a very long time inside a spaceship might do to a person, both physically and mentally. NASA wants to check this out thoroughly before they start sending astronauts on missions to Mars, or to explore faraway asteroids.

Participants in NASA's human research program share a capsule with each other that includes some workspace for doing lab experiments, a little kitchen table for eating meals that are just like what's served aboard the International Space Station, plus an exercise bike and some free weights. There's no internet, but you do get your own little cozy sleeping pod on the top floor.

The fake astronauts "on board" the capsule in May and June of 2024 include an aerospace engineering professor, a US Air Force Reserve member, a commercial pilot, and a biomedical engineer.

And that mission is nothing compared to NASA's CHAPEA Mars simulation , which keeps recruits in a simulated habitat of the red planet for 378 days. (NASA declined to comment on how much CHAPEA pays).

Take part in a clinical trial

Payout: Varies by program

The National Institutes of Health run a searchable database, ClincalTrials.gov , that rounds up human clinical studies ongoing around the world. Participants may be guinea pigs for new medical products, like drugs to treat high blood pressure, or they take part in observational research, like a study that records the effects of different lifestyles on heart health.

Subjects are generally paid to participate in such clinical trials, and most of the time, the bigger the risk, the bigger the reward. For example, a participant in one study in which participants were exposed to dysentery-causing bacteria was paid over $7,000, while a single blood draw or lab visit for a more straightforward study may only be worth $100 or so.

If you do decide to enroll in a study, choose wisely and carefully because not all of the studies on the site are regulated or evaluated for safety by the US Food and Drug Administration.

Enroll in a psychological study

Paid psychological studies, such as those that examine human behavior and brain function, may not generate as high of a return as clinical trials, but they are generally lower risk and require a shorter time commitment.

Most research universities keep an online database of studies so people can easily sign up. For example, here's a list of the most recent paid research studies offered by New York University . At NYU, you can make $12 an hour playing video games, and receive a $50 bonus if you're good at it.

Give your dead body to science

Payout: free cremation

This last idea is sort of morbid, but if you're worried about being a bother when you're dead, you can donate your body to science . This helps with various types of research and education.

Places like BioGift and Science Care will cover the costs of cremation, which can run upwards of $2,000.

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Hourly Wage for Medical Research Scientist Salary in the United States

Hourly wage for medical research scientist salary.

How much does a Medical Research Scientist make hourly in the United States? The average hourly wage for a Medical Research Scientist in the United States is $47 as of May 28, 2024, but the salary range typically falls between $40 and $57 . Hourly rate can vary widely depending on many important factors, including education , certifications, additional skills, the number of years you have spent in your profession. With more online, real-time compensation data than any other website, Salary.com helps you determine your exact pay target.

Senior Research Scientist - Adversarial Machine Learning

Carnegie Mellon University - Pittsburgh, PA

Medical Laboratory Scientist/Expert Medical Laboratory Scientist

UPMC - Pittsburgh Medical Center - Pittsburgh, PA

Medical Laboratory Scientist PRN

Rapides Regional Medical Center - Alexandria, LA

Medical Lab Scientist / MLS

UT Health Pittsburg - Pittsburg, TX

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'Everywhere we looked, we found evidence': Microplastics expert on 20 years of pollution research

by Richard Thompson, The Conversation

Thirty years ago, while counting barnacles, limpets and seaweeds along rocky shores, I started noticing a daily tide of litter, mostly plastic. As a marine biology Ph.D. student at Liverpool University, I kept removing it, but the next day, there'd be more.

I'm now a leading international expert on microplastics, a term I coined on May 7, 2004, to describe fragments of plastic measuring as small as a millionth of a meter. As I work to help reduce the grip of plastic pollution on our planet, the solutions are clear to me.

Regulators, governments and citizens all urgently need to turn off the tide of plastic pollution at its source by reducing the production of plastics. But having just returned from the UN global plastics treaty negotiations in Ottawa, Canada, it's frustrating to see the lack of consensus among nations about how to address this global problem.

Disturbed by the scale of the plastic contamination I first noticed on that beach in 1993, I felt compelled to act. I recruited students and the local community to help with the annual Marine Conservation Society's beach clean. We recorded what we found on printed templates.

Back then, a new tool was just becoming available for data compilation: the Excel spreadsheet. The budding scientist within drove me to tabulate what we removed, based on the categories on the printed templates that included bottles, bags, rope and netting.

Suddenly, it struck me that the most numerous items had no category. Fragments of larger plastic items, which appeared by far the most numerous were not being recorded. I got curious and wondered what the smallest plastic pieces on the shore were.

When I began teaching a few years later, I challenged my students to find the smallest pieces of plastic on the beach. Looking among the sand grains, there they were—tiny blue and red fibers and fragments.

An almost forensic journey ensued to confirm their identity. In collaboration with a polymer chemist, we confirmed the tiny fragments were common plastic polymers—polyethylene, polypropylene, polyvinyl chloride (PVC)— that presumably formed via mechanical degradation and were accumulating as fragments smaller than the grains of sand themselves.

I was hooked on discovering more about this new form of contamination. Working initially with postgraduate students at the University of Plymouth where I was lecturing, we found that these pieces were common on the shore and in seabed mud and we showed they were eaten by marine life .

Most alarmingly, we used archived samples of plankton that had been collected decades previously to demonstrate that the abundance of microplastics had increased significantly since the 1960s and 1970s.

I pulled together nearly a decade of this research into a one-page summary titled "Lost at sea: where is all the plastic?" That paper , published in the journal Science 20 years ago, was the first to use the term microplastics in this context. Within a couple of weeks, this became a worldwide news story.

Everyone wanted to know whether microplastics were harmful. I set out to establish the wider distribution and determine whether they might be harmful to humans and wildlife.

Despite huge media and policy interest, funding was a challenge. One anonymous reviewer commented that there will never be enough plastic in the oceans to cause the sort of harm Thompson wants to investigate.

Over the years that followed, my team and I showed that microplastics were common on shorelines worldwide , they were abundant in the deep sea , in Arctic sea ice and in multiple species of fish . They weren't just polluting marine environments. They were present in rivers and snow from near the summit of Mount Everest . Everywhere we looked, we found evidence of microplastics.

By 2008, the term microplastic was highlighted by the EU's flagship marine strategy framework directive , a policy introduced to maintain clean, healthy, productive and resilient marine ecosystems. It stipulated that "the quantities of plastic and microplastic should not cause harm in the marine environment."

We demonstrated that, if ingested, microplastics could transfer from the gut to the circulatory system of mussels and that nanoparticles could pass through the bodies of scallops within a matter of hours. We demonstrated the potential for chemical transfer to wildlife and confirmed that the presence of microplastics could have negative consequences , reducing the ability of organisms to put on weight.

A UK parliamentary environmental audit committee requested a special report on microplastics in 2016. I was called to give evidence, and perhaps prompted by comments from my colleagues, MP Mary Creagh referred to me as the "godfather of microplastics" and so it entered the public record.

There are now thousands of studies on microplastics published by researchers worldwide. Policy interventions resulting from this work include the UK ban on plastic microbeads in rinse-off cosmetics, and EU legislation to prohibit intentional addition of microplastics to products which could prevent hundreds of thousands of metric tons of microplastics entering the environment.

However, the largest source of microplastics is the fragmentation of larger items in the environment. So ultimately, we need to take action to reduce the production of a wider range of plastic products than just those containing microplastics.

Without action, plastic production could triple by 2060 . Yet, some nations seem set on a path to increase production rather than reduce it.

Treaty negotiations

Last week, I was in Ottawa where 180 nations debated the content of the global plastic pollution treaty, a text that contains more than 60 references to microplastics.

What can be done to halt this accumulation? Microplastics are almost impossible to remove . Even for larger items, clean up won't solve the problem. Novel materials such as biodegradable plastics may offer benefits in specific circumstances but won't solve plastic pollution.

I left the negotiations with mixed emotions. Pleased that the scientific community had delivered sufficient hard evidence—including some of my own research—on plastic pollution to initiate the need for this global treaty. Saddened that 180 nations found it so hard to reach a consensus on the way forward. Negotiations failed to stipulate that independent scientists should even be included in formal expert working groups.

Like many scientists who helped deliver the evidence of harm, it's immensely frustrating to potentially be sidelined from an international process that hopes to deliver solutions. It may be hard for some to swallow—I saw one delegate holding a single-use plastic water bottle behind his back during negotiations. Contrary to the outcome of those midnight discussions in Ottawa, the focus must be on prevention by reducing global production of plastic polymers and ensuring any plastic items we do produce are essential, safe and sustainable .

Journal information: Science

Provided by The Conversation

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