The principal aim of our research is to enhance our ability to understand and mitigate the impact of anthropogenic environmental pollutants in water to protect human and wildlife health. Specifically, our research focuses on:

• environmental monitoring and risk assessment of environmental pollutants, and specifically Contaminants of Emerging Concerns (CEC) and microplastics;
• development and application of emerging techniques in ecotoxicology, such effects-based monitoring (EBM) and -omics approaches; and
• development and validation of ethical alternatives to animal testing in toxicology.

Our research program addresses global concern about pollution of scarce potable water resources and aligns closely with the National Science and Research Priority of “Soil and Water”, five UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs 6, 11, 12, 13 and 14) and two Areas of Strategic Investment at Griffith University (“Environmental Sciences” and “Water Science”).

Environmental monitoring and risk assessment of environmental pollutants

We come in contact with thousands of chemicals every day … pharmaceuticals (ibuprofen, metformin, ethinylestradiol), personal care products (triclosan, parabens), food additives (caffeine, sucralose), herbicides (atrazine, glyphosate), insecticides (neonicotinoids), fire retardants (PBDE, BFR), petroleum products (benzene), plastics (styrene, polyethylene), plasticisers (phthalates), industrial compounds (formaldehyde, ammonia) … the list goes on. In fact, the OECD maintains a list of more than 4,000 high production volume chemicals. This is only the tip of the iceberg – there are more than 150 million chemicals known to date, and the list is growing by one new chemical every 6 seconds (!). Most of these chemicals end up in the environment – in our water, air, soil and eventually within the bodies of living organisms, including humans.

In this program of research, we focus on the occurrence, fate and toxicity of contaminants in the environment. We apply a variety of techniques towards this end, including effects-based monitoring (e.g., cell-based bioassays), biomarker monitoring (e.g., targeted and untargeted proteomic and metabolomic), trace chemical analysis (e.g., LC and GC/MSn, ICPMS) and fate modelling (e.g., toxicokinetic, fugacity modelling).

Our aim is to better understand the risks that chemicals pose to humans, wildlife and our environment to help ensure a safe and sustainable future for a technologically advanced human society.

Ethical alternatives to animal testing in toxicology

There is currently a global paradigm shift in (eco)toxicology, moving away from whole organism (in vivo) testing towards more ethical alternatives such as in vitro (cell-based) and in silico (computer modelling) methods. Both US and European science advisories strongly promote the development of alternative methods to whole organism testing to assess chemical toxicity. Our research focusses on the development of ethical alternatives to toxicity testing and the application of these methods in ecological and human risk assessments, as well as water quality assessments. More specifically, this research includes the establishment of new cell cultures (for marine wildlife species), the development of species-specific cell-based toxicity bioassays (e.g. cytotoxicity, oxidative stress, genotoxicity), proteomics and metabolomics approaches to discovering biomarkers of chemical exposure and effect, and toxicokinetic modelling to trace the fate of chemicals in organisms following exposure and to provide more meaningful chemical risk assessments from cell-based toxicity data.