-Research Project / Research Group Description:

Aquatic ecosystems are widely impacted by a countless number of contaminants,
encompassing heavy metals, pharmaceuticals, organic pollutants, etc., which eventually
result in long-term ecotoxicological effects. Native microorganisms living in these areas have developed resistance and/or tolerance mechanisms to deal with the hazardous pollutants. These mechanisms have bioremediation potential and represent environmental friendly alternative to chemical and physical detoxification techniques.
In previous works, it was shown the potential usage of microorganisms for the remediation purpose of individual aquatic pollutants and detoxification of contaminated ecosystems. However, it is well known that most of the pollutants appear in the environment as a mixture, as they tend to adsorb to suspended particulate matter and finally accumulate in the sediment. Here, we propose the development of new bioremediation strategies combining high-throughput molecular technologies with sustainable principles to address the complexity associated to the detoxification of environmental contaminants mixtures in a more realistic scenario.
The main objectives are:
i) To isolate and characterize phenotypically and genetically the microorganism from
contaminated areas that exhibit multi-resistance phenotypes to metals, organic compounds and pharmaceuticals for subsequent detoxification activity research;
ii) To study the effects of environmental stressors (e.g. pH, temperature and salinity, the
influence of microplastic and plant root) on microbial-mediated detoxification.
iii) To perform the optimization of microbial-mediated detoxification process by factorial design.
The determination of optimal condition for microbial detoxification will provide a safe and
economic alternative to achieve the Mixtures of Contaminant Accumulation Prevention in
the Aquatic Ecosystem or Mix-CAPAE.

-Job position description:

We are looking for highly motivated PhD student to work on the development of
bioremediation strategies using high-throughput molecular techniques and on the design of optimal conditions to promote biodetoxification of aquatic systems. The student involved in this project will have the opportunity to develop transdisciplinary skills, encompassing molecular biology, microbiology, toxicology and biotechnology and be integrated in a dynamic research team. Scientific papers writing and conference attendance will be highly encouraged.