Marie Curie Actions: Inspiring Researchers - Imdea

Touching base onmicro-pollutantsThe term ‘micro-pollutants’ covers a variety of both natural andman-made substances, including a wide range of industrial chemicals,endocrine-disrupting or pharmaceutically active compounds,antibiotics and pesticides. They are discharged deliberately orinadvertently, or may be present as a result of degradation processes.Crucially, many of these substances can persist despitetreatment and some of them can affect aquatic organisms andpossibly human health.The effects of micro-pollutants are the particular concern ofthe Marie Curie-funded Aquabase project, managed by RitaHochstrat, a biologist, and coordinated by Professor ThomasMelin, a chemical engineer, both from RWTH Aachen University.‘The programme’s focus is endocrine disrupters, but also abroader group of micro-pollutants, including antibiotics, otherpharmaceuticals and residues of personal-care products,’explains Professor Melin. ‘The goal is a better understanding ofthe fate of civilisation-related chemicals in our water and fi ndingways to control them.’The problem of quantifying the occurrence, analysing the distributionpathways and evaluating the various effects of micropollutantsrepresents a set of truly interdisciplinary tasks, he adds.To meet the challenge, Aquabase has put together a consortiumcomprising several departments within the Natural Sciences, Medicaland Engineering Faculties of RWTH Aachen University.Team members say the results have been very promising, leadingto some important new insights of value to other researchersand potentially the general public.A sense of accomplishmentRita Hochstrat looks back on fi ve years of planning and guiding theFellows’ progress: ‘This project lends itself perfectly to the training ofFellows of varied backgrounds. Thanks to the Marie Curie programme,these young researchers are benefi ting from a strong and coherentstructure, where complementary topics and methods are the coreof the programme.’All Fellows received training in using powerful analytical techniques,indispensable tools for investigating micro-pollutants. These includethe use of radio-labelled substances.Sorting out micro-pollutants149