16 August 2023

 

During the FOREWARN Summer School from 15-16 June 2023, 8 students from Spain, France, Finland, Greece and Serbia came together in Dublin, Ireland. Their aim: Learning something about new tools to assess contaminants of emerging concern in the aquatic environment.

The FOREWARN project will study, assess and model the occurrence, fate and behaviour of pathogens (including viruses as SARS-CoV-2) and Contaminants of emerging concern (CECs). Another focus lies on the development of antibiotic-resistant bacteria (ARB) and antibiotic resistance genes (ARG) under different environmental, climatic, and hydrological situations.

The Summer School has been held in the framework of the project. During the course, seven professors (who have given different master classes) introduced the students into the topic of CECs and persistent organic pollutants under an environmental and chemical point of view. In addition, the students learned some strategies to perform a chemical analysis. At the end, they participated in a Quiz to test their knowledge regarding all this sections.

Furthermore, they got an introduction to the assessment of ecotoxicity, and to the main tests to be performed if testing the toxicity of environmental chemical pollutants. Once they have acquired some skills in the chemical analysis of, e.g., antibiotic chemicals, they visited a master class. The topic of this master class was the determination and presence of antibiotic resistance in the aquatic environment, which is transmitted by the constant presence of antibiotic residues in environmental waters.

They have also been initiated in the determination and the main effects of the presence of viruses in the environment. Finally, the students learned something about the wide capacity of machine learning and the main applications in the context of the project.