Analysis and Fate of Contaminants of Emerging Concern

我的小组目前的研究重点是对新出现的污染物的分析和环境归宿。新出现的令人担忧的污染物包括几乎没有发表的科学数据的真正的新污染物（例如，许多药物产品、全氟化表面活性剂、增塑剂），沿着由于新发现的问题和潜在的影响和问题而重新“流行”的遗留污染物（例如，饮用水中的铅和锰，大米中的铅）。在大多数情况下，我们小组的研究工作分为开发适当的分析化学/样品制备方法，环境应用于实际样品，以及研究这些化合物在环境中的命运和潜在影响。这项工作旨在是多学科的，以说明一个优秀的分析化学的发展，结合耐用性，以科普真实的世界样品和风险分析所需的正确解释这些结果的含义（分析工具已经达到这样的性能，检测污染物的存在是不够的，它可能代表的潜在风险的结论）。然后，我们跟踪这些污染物在各种介质（土壤，水，沉积物，空气）中的环境命运。我们目前的工作，与大多数药物组药物-包括一些更具挑战性的化合物来衡量，如化疗药物，氰毒素，全氟消防化合物（“老”最近被禁止的化合物，但包括现在正在销售的替代品），增塑剂，非法药物和类固醇激素。 我仍然在观察下一个污染物获得新兴的地位，但我已经从水的重点转移到更好地关注分析发展，以更好地科普哪些不稳定的基质。痕量质谱分析工作受到其处理肮脏基质的能力的限制，我们最近的大部分工作都集中在对更强硬的基质（如沉积物中的全氟化合物、鱼类组织中的蓝藻毒素或粪便中的抗生素）获得良好的分析性能。了解这两类新出现的污染物的归宿和影响的最后一步是适当评估它们一旦释放到环境中所产生的潜在风险。这一直是一个敏感的问题，我们试图仔细辨别这一部分是基于科学证据的真正关注，而什么只是无用的恐慌。

The research in my group is currently focused on the analysis and environmental fate on contaminants of emerging concern. Contaminants of emerging concern include both truly new contaminants for which little published scientific data are available (e.g., many pharmaceutical products, perfluorinated surfactants, plasticizers), along with legacy contaminants which are regaining "popularity" because of newly discovered issues and potential effects and problems (e.g., Pb and Mn in drinking water, As in rice). In most of these situations, the research work in my group is divided into the development of the appropriate analytical chemistry/sample preparation methods, environmental applications to real-world samples, and the studies of the fate and potential effects of those compounds in the environment. The work aims to be multidisciplinary to account for an excellent analytical chemistry development, combined with the ruggedness to cope real world sample and the risk analysis required to properly interpret the meaning of such results (analytical tools have attained such performances that detecting the presence of a contaminant is not enough to conclude about the potential risks that it may represent). We then follow with environmental fate of such contaminants across a variety of media (soil, water, sediments, air).***We currently work, with most groups of pharmaceuticals drugs - including some more challenging compounds to measure such as chemotherapy agents, cyanotoxins, perfluorinated firefighting compounds (both "older" recently-banned compounds but including the alternatives which are now being sold), plasticizers, illicit drugs and steroid hormones. I remain on the watch for the next contaminants to gain emerging status but I have moved from a focus in water to better focus on analytical development to better cope which recalcitrant matrices. Trace mass spectrometry work is limited by its capacity to deal with dirty matrices and much of our recent work has focused on obtaining good analytical performances for tougher matrices such as perfluorinated compounds in sediments, cyanotoxins in fish tissue or antibiotics in manure.***The final step to understanding of the fate and effects of both types of emerging contaminants is to properly evaluate the potential risks arising from their presence once they are released into the environment. This has been a sensitive issue and we try to carefully discern what portion of this is a true concern based on the scientific evidence and what is just useless scare.**