Contaminant Science Group

Progressing technological development provides solution to societal challenges but also creates problems of its own. Crucial natural resources like clean air, water or soil are under increasing pressure caused, among other factors, by production and release of chemicals. How detrimental are anthropogenic chemicals released to the environment? Which chemicals pose the most severe threat? Could they be replaced by less hazardous alternatives?

At Contaminant Science Group we focus on the assessment of environmental fate and hazard of chemicals: (eco)toxicity, bioaccumulation, biodegradability, partitioning, mobility of chemicals - you name it! We specifically try to pinpoint what types of hazards are to be expected, what makes particular chemical hazardous and why.
We believe that technological development can be aligned with environment protection goals - it all comes down to the choices we make.

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Wichtige Themen im Überblick

Forschung

At Contaminant Science Group we are interested in chemicals and the hazard they might pose to humans and the environment. To build a basic hazard profile we look into: toxicity, biodegradability, bioaccumulation potential and environmental distribution of a particular compound. Such a hazard profile is invaluable in many aspects. It allows to assess if the hazard a particular chemical can pose if still acceptable for us. It also allows us to compare between different chemical to choose the one that is least hazardous.

Cooperation

Our areas of expertise revolve around comprehensive proactive or retrospective hazard assesment of chemicals including: aquatic toxicity, biodegradability, environmental and physiological partitioning, mobility and leaching, environmentally relevant physicochemical properties, advanced targeted and non-targeted analytics. Our activities involve both basic and applied research.

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Open positions

Do you want to work in international, dynamic research group? Is the environment and protection of natural resources important to you? Do you have experience in analytical/physical/biological chemistry, biology, toxicology or modelling? Are you motivated, open-minded and ready for new challenges? If you answered yes to any of these questions keep reading….

Contaminat Science Group at a glance

At Contaminant Science Group we focuse on the assessment of environmental fate and hazard of chemicals. This includes investigation of (eco)toxicity, bioaccumulation, biodegradability, partitioning and mobility of various, mainly anthropogenic, compounds in the natural environment.

From the fundamental research perspective, we are interested in uncovering structure-activity relationships in these processes i.e. in understanding what elements of chemical structure are responsible for high or low biodegradability/toxicity/mobility etc. On more applied level we aim to use that knowledge to support design of chemicals that are less hazardous to man and the environment.

The Contaminant Science Group was established in 2019 thanks to the financial support of Kurt Eberhard Bode Foundation.