Environmental Contamination and Toxicology

Note: This course will be offered in 2027-2028 for the first time.

This course is an introduction to the processes that lead from release of environmental pollutants to adverse impacts on organisms and plants. The starting point is the release of pollutants in terrestrial and aquatic systems focussing on sources, processes and the nature of released chemicals. Environmental drivers of chemical fate and speciation are identified and their impact on the bioavailability of contaminants to organisms explained. Based on this, species-specific uptake and accumulation of chemicals in organisms is elucidated and further related to molecular and biochemical toxicological pathways towards adverse effects in organisms. The course is set-up as an integration between lectures, a practical and computer tutorials. In the practical part of the course you will experimentally address speciation processes of chemicals in soil and water and apply a set of modern in vitro and in vivo assays to assess the toxicity of a relevant chemical. In tutorials, modelling approaches will be presented to illustrate predictive pathways to environmental fate and effects of chemicals.

• Summarise the mechanism of pollutant fate and speciation, and understand the relation between environmental pollution and ecotoxicity

• Understand fundamental concepts of toxicology, bioaccumulation and biomagnification in different ecosystems (water and soil), based on Adverse Outcome Pathways approach and principles of dose-response relationships

• Appreciate the impacts of environmental and ecological variability on the pathway from chemical release to adverse outcome.

• Perform simplified ecotoxicological risk assessment and biomonitoring experiments using standard scientific methods and interpret findings.

• Understand the basic principles of environmental fate and ecotoxicology to assess potential impacts of environmental chemicals released in the environment

• Written test with open and closed questions (70%) Written test with open and closed questions. This will focus on Learning Outcomes 1,2,3.
• Assignment oral presentation (30%) The outcomes of the practical will be presented to the others via a poster presentations in groups of 3. This will focus on learning outcome 4.
• Performance (%) The performance of the students in the practical and tutorials will be assessed individually based on their performance during the practical and their involvement in discussing tutorial results. This will focus on learning outcomes 4 and 5.

ZSS06100 Laboratory Safety The course builds on several courses of the BSc programme: AEW11303, SOC10803, and MIB11806.