The analysis of drug residues in waste and environmental waters offers valuable insights into the epidemiological and environmental implications of drug use. This study employs a wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE) approach to estimate the use of licit and illicit drugs and new psychoactive substances (NPS) among both general and specific populations. …
Traditional methods of studying viruses are limited in their ability to detect novel pathogens, but recent advances in high-throughput sequencing (HTS) are changing that. HTS allows researchers to probe deeply into the virome of various hosts and environments, identifying known and unknown viral species. However, a targeted approach, like quantitative …
This thesis focuses on the fate of chosen antidepressants in the environment. Studied compounds belong to the class of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors. Reportedly they do not completely mineralize by existing water treatment processes and their residues cause unwanted toxic effects in aquatic organisms. However, to date, insufficient information has …
Contaminants of emerging concern (CECs), representing a subgroup of organic compounds of natural or synthetic origin, and their degradation and transformation products (TPs), with potentially harmful effects on humans, biota, and the environment, are the eco-exposome (EE) constituents of utmost importance. Their identification, quantification, and continued investigation into their environmental …
Metagenomics based on high throughput sequencing (HTS) has opened a new era of discovery and genomic characterization of viruses associated with a given host or environment. The search for novel viral sequences provides an excellent opportunity to improve early detection of pathogens, and to predict viral hosts and environmental reservoirs …
Human exposure to environmental stressors is widespread. Highly dynamic, these chemical, physical and social factors, collectively termed as the exposome, interact with internal factors such as genetics, sex, gut microbiome and general health status, and dictate susceptibility and risk for an onset of diseases. Human exposure to the chemicals is …
Contaminants of emerging concern (CEC) are organic pollutants occurring in wastewater and consequently enter the environment. An alternative to conventional wastewater treatment are algal photobioreactors, which treat wastewater with low energy input while producing nutrient- and energy-rich algal biomass and treated water, which both have the potential to be reused. …
Bisphenols are a group of industrial chemicals increasingly recognized as contaminants of emerging concern because of their presence in the environment and endocrine disrupting effects. They are used in the production of polycarbonate plastic, epoxy resins and thermal paper, in most cases without restriction. The global exception is bisphenol A, …
The presence of steroid estrogens in the environment has been studied intensively for two decades because of their possible deleterious effects on living organisms at very low (ng/L) concentrations. To determine concentrations of steroid estrogens and the estrogenic potential of environmental samples, sophisticated and sensitive analytical techniques as well as …
The presence of pharmaceutical residues in surface waters is an emerging environmental issue that provides a new challenge to treatment systems for potable water, wastewater and water reuse. Their principle pathways into the sewerage system are twofold: first, after being administered to patients they are normally excreted as various metabolites …