Our research is targeted towards understanding chemical and microbiological impacts on the environment resulting from human activity and - vice versa - to understand human health effects of contaminants and microorganisms present in the environment.

The aim is to provide the highest capability in Denmark for assessing the risks associated with the distribution and fate of chemicals and microorganisms in the environment.

Our mission is to provide the knowledge base for government policies and regulation addressing environmental issues relating to organic contaminants and microorganisms.

Based on high quality research and analyses, the department provides independent evidence-based scientific advice to government regulatory agencies – in particular the Environmental Protection Agency and the Nature Agency – as well as international bodies (e.g. EU, ICES).

The research activities are grouped into four thematic areas:

1. Environmental and human exposure to chemcal contaminants

2. The environment as reservoir of pathogenic bacteria and virulence, and its role in the development and spreading of infectious diseases

3. Environmental risk analysis of chemicals and microorganisms

4. State of the Environment Evaluation

5. Sustainable biotechnology

We continuously strive to develop and apply state-of-the-art high-resolution analytical methods (e.g., molecular and mass spectral chemical analyses) to understand the processes that affect the fate and distribution of organic contaminants and microorganisms in the environment and their potential for wildlife and human exposure.

We take an active role in the development of new sustainable and safe environmental technologies (i.e. bioremediation, phytoremediation and microbial pest control agents), and in delivering environmental monitoring data.

In addition to the research and consultancy tasks, the department also offers chemical proficiency testing schemes of various pollutants of environmental relevance in water matrices.

Annually, the department organizes 1-2 PhD-courses/summerschools.

Within environmental chemistry, our key skills and expertise include:

• Trace level measurements of persistent organic pollutants in different matrices (water, soil, sediment, sludge, biota and humans)
• Equilibrium passive sampling in various environmental matrices
• Exposure and effects of highly hydrophobic organic pollutants, including toxicity test systems that provide well defined and stable exposure concentrations
• Analytical technologies directed towards the measurement of chemical activity of pollutants in the environment
• Micro-scale diffusion of hydrophobic organic chemicals
• Development of new state-of-the-art high-resolution analytical methods
• Analytical/chemical fingerprinting using GC-MS
• Measurements of the transport/fluxes of chemicals in the environment with a view to elucidating key exposure routes
• The role of bioavailability in determining biodegradation and toxicity

Within environmental microbiology, our key skills and expertise include:

• Characterization of the occurrence, activity and genetic and functional diversity of environmental bacteria and microbial communities with emphasis on the soil and air
• Horizontal gene transfer and adaptation of microbial communities
• Interactions between bacteria and protozoa, plants and invertebrates
• Phylogenetic relationships within the Bacillus cereus group bacteria
• Testing for pathogenic properties of bacteria, and genetic characterization of opportunistic and household genes with focus on the Bacillus cereus group
• Isolation and cultivation of “hard to culture” bacteria
• Autoecology of microorganisms in soil and air
• Microbial degradation and transformation of xenobiotic compounds (e.g. polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, BTEX, nanomaterials), and the effect of environmental parameters on the accessibility of xenobiotic compounds to microbial degradation
• Toxicity of nanomaterials towards microorganisms in natural habitats

The department has a modern laboratory with the infrastructure needed for microbiological, molecular and chemical work. It is e.g. equipped with an Accelerated solvent extractor (ASE), several GC-MS’s, a LC-MS/MS, several HPLC’s, several GC’s, UV-Vis spectrophotometers, refrigerated high speed and ultra-centrifuges, bench top centrifuges, a TOC analyzer, several light and epifluorescence microscopes, a Chameleon multilabel detection platform, various electrophoresis equipment, a digital image analysis system, PCR and qPCR machines, and general equipment for DNA based molecular work.

Currently, the staff consists of the Director of the department, a professor in environmental chemistry, 4 microbiologists, 5 chemists, 6 PhD-students, 12 technicians and laboratory assistants, 3 administrative staff. Master-level students and visiting scientists from Denmark and abroad are also working at the department.

  
Staff, September 2010