MSCA-IF: Joint application at the University of Granada. Department of Analytical Chemistry

Professor Alberto Zafra Gómez , from the Department of Analytical Chemistry at the University of Granada, welcomes postdoctoral candidates interested in applying for a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowships (MSCA-IF) in 2019 at this University. Please note that applicants must comply with the Mobility Rule (more information: http://sl.ugr.es/09Qg).

Brief description of the institution:

The University of Granada (UGR), founded in 1531, is one of the largest and most important universities in Spain. It serves more than 60000 students per year, including many foreign students, as UGR is the leader host institution in the Erasmus program. UGR, featuring 3650 professors and more than 2000 auxiliary personnel, offers a total of 75 degrees through its 112 departments and 28 centers.

UGR is also a leading institution in research, located in the top 5/10 of Spanish universities by a variety of ranking criteria, such as national R&D projects, fellowships awarded, publications, or international funding. UGR is one of the few Spanish Universities listed in the Shanghai Top 500 ranking (http://www.arwu.org/), and it is also well recognized for its web presence (http://www.4icu.org/top200/).

Internationally, we bet decidedly by our participation in the calls of H2020, both at partner and coordination. For the duration of the Seventh Framework Programme, the UGR has obtained a total of 66 projects, with total funding of 17.97 million euros, and for H2020, until 2015, more than 25 projects with total funding of more than 6 million euros. Our more than 3,000 researchers are grouped into 365 research groups covering all scientific fields and disciplines.

Brief description of the Centre/Research Group

Currently, the research lines in which our research group (FQM-338) is involved are varied. The main line of work focuses on the study of the environmental behavior of numerous chemical pollutants. The objective of this research is to detect the presence of pharmaceuticals, personal care products, surfactants and chemical endocrine disruptors (EDCs) in different matrices of environmental interest (soils, wastewater, sewage sludge, compost and aquatic sediments). The aim is to study their behavior and evolution in each of these environmental compartments and their possible transfer to the food chain. The second line in importance focuses on the study of the presence of EDCs in living organisms, and their possible bioaccumulation in tissues and human biological fluids (placenta, urine, serum and human milk). A third line, established in collaboration with the Department of Analytical Chemistry of the University of Barcelona, ​​focuses on the study of the presence of antibiotics in foods of animal origin. In order to develop the research above mentioned, the members of the group are specialists in the use of analytical techniques, such as liquid and gas chromatography coupled to mass spectrometry, in the development of numerous sample treatment techniques (LLE, LLME, SPME, SPE, USE, PLE, SBSE, SM-SLLME, dSPE, QuEChERs) and in the validation of the analytical methods optimized.

Project description

The projectfocuses on the study of the behaviour and fate of chemical compounds, that due to human activity, end their useful cycle in the environment, where begins its polluting activity. The ultimate goal is to control the presence of these chemical compounds promoting their bioremediation in the contaminated media.

Wastewater is one of the main routes for potentially harmful contaminants to re-enter the environment. It is well-known that the treatment of wastewater and the resulting sludge are not able to completely remove thousands of compounds, which results in the presence of contaminants in many environmental compartments and the biota present in these media.

The main routes of exposure to these pollutants are the wastewater submarine emisaries and wastewater used for irrigation or discharged directly into rivers from where they reach water reservoirs, seas or oceans, and ultimately –through adsorption or precipitation—marine and fluvial sediments. The presence of these contaminants in the sludge produced in wastewater treatment plants is of importance also since it is often used for soil amendment.

Our objective is to determine the transformations of these pollutants since they are incorporated to wastewater, their ultimate fate and the incorporation into the trophic chain through the lower levels of the food chain (small animals and plants exposed to contaminants). We also aim to understand the different mechanisms (adsorption/desorption, precipitation, microbial transformation, mobility, etc) that facilitate or hinder the bioavailability in the studied environment and determine the concentrations present in living organisms exposed to these compounds. As a first step and in order to know the content of the various pollutants in selected media, new analytical methodology will be validated in these complex matrices.

Research Area

Environmental Sciences and Chemistry (ENV-CHE)

For a correct evaluation of your candidature, please send the documents below to Professor Alberto Zafra Gómez (azafra@ugr.es):

• CV
• Letter of recommendation (optional)