A sound science-based assessment of organic contaminants in the marine environment
Funding source: Formas - The Swedish Research Council for Environment, Agricultural Sciences and Spatial Planning
Period: 12/1/09 - 11/30/13
Funding: 9200000 SEK
Description:
The project's aims are: 1) to solidify ITM?s position as a world leader in identifying and evaluating organic contaminants in the marine environment; 2) to provide the Swedish government with the scientific knowledge to take a leading role in international debate, negotiations and policy-making concerning organic contaminants. ITM leads an international project (SCREEN-POP) to develop a tiered screening system for identifying chemicals according to PBT and POP characteristics, starting with in-silico ranking of 40 000 chemicals according to their expected concentrations in top predators and humans. The top-ranked chemicals will be screened for in the environment, including development of analytical methods if needed. We apply for additional funding to support and expand development of this screening system to include persistent transformation products of the chemicals, support our world-leading research on perfluorinated compounds as well as include biological effects studies to evaluate the risk posed by newly identified contaminants. Based on their chemical structure, potential mechanisms for interference with biochemical processes will be identified and used to select appropriate test systems at different levels of biological organisation. The test systems on ecologically relevant species in the Baltic Sea that are well established at ITM will be an important part of the toolbox, but the test spectrum will be expanded via collaboration with other research groups.
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