phase 1: 2008-2011
For a short summary of phase 1 please read our book "Pharmaceuticals in a Healthy Environment". For a full list of scientific publications click here.
Main contributions
New concept
A concept of a "critical environmental concen-
tration" (CEC) has been proposed and predicted for 500 pharmaceutical substances. The CEC represents a water concentration that is expected to cause a pharmacological response in exposed fish.
www.wikipharma.org
A freely available, comprehensive and
interactive database with ecotoxicity data for
pharmaceutical substances were compiled.
Available here
Molander et al. 2009
Evolutionary conservation of drug targets
The evolutionary conservation of human drug targets in non-target organisms was described, identifying limitations for extrapolating between species.
Wastewater treatment techniques
Ozone and active carbon have been identified as promising techniques to reduce pharmaceutical substances during wastewater treatment and proposed for further implementation studies in phase 2.
Analytical protocols
Sensitive and streamlined analytical protocols
redeveloped for more than 120 pharmaceutical substances in different matrices.
Reliability and relevance evaluation
Comparison of current reliability evaluation methods for ecotoxicity studies, evaluation of peer-reviewed studies, and development of a new evaluation method for both reliability and relevance.
Pollution from manufacturing
Pollution from manufacturing was identified as a source for the highest concentrations of pharmaceutical substances in the environment, leading to promotion of antibiotic resistance genes.
Pharmaceuticals of concern
Several pharmaceutical substances were identified as being of potential concern when combining bio-concentration studies and read-across between mammals and fish.
Ethinylestradiol, a hormonal ingredient of
contraceptive pills, were observed to cause sex change and reduced fertility in frog when the tadpoles were exposed to concentrations found in the environment.
Levonorgestrel, a synthetic hormone used in contraceptives, bio-concentrates in trout exposed to treated wastewater. The concentration in the fish blood plasma was higher than the therapeutic level in humans. Severe effects on the reproductive system in female frogs were also observed after exposure to levonorgestrel during tadpole stages.