Biological Sciences

Profile

I am currently studying part-time for a PhD, researching the effects of pharmaceutical mixtures on the common shore crab Carcinus maenas in estuarine conditions.

The aims of the project are to answer the following questions:

• What sub-lethal chronic effects are caused by pharmaceuticals in the aquatic environment?
• Are these effects limited to physiological problems or also tissue damage?
• Are effects amplified by pharmaceuticals being present as complex mixtures?
• Can this method of testing be used for future toxicity work on pharmaceuticals and other novel compounds being recovered in natural water samples?

Hopefully this project will illuminate a topic that has not been widely researched and currently is a major gap in the knowledge of what effects the many pharmaceutical compounds being produced may actually do once in the aquatic environment. It is also aimed to show that routine toxicity studies provide out-dated information and do not fully appreciate the chronic or mode of action of toxicological effects.