News & Events

From 02.05.2016 until 31.07.2016 Wioletta Jakubczak from the Warsaw University of Technology, Faculty of Chemistry/Chair of Analytical Chemistry performed a Erasmus + Traineeship in the department Marine Bioanalytical Chemistry to get familiar with different new LC-ICP-MS based hyphenated techniques and their application for elemental speciation analysis of environmental samples. Wioletta is currently working as a PhD student in the group of Prof. Kasia Pawlak. The focus of her thesis is on the investigation of pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics of new metallodrugs in cancer cells.

During her stay Wioletta was involved in the setup and optimization of a new LC-ICP-MS method for the analysis of new emerging contaminants in river, esturine and marine water samples.

From 01.03.2016 until 31.05.2016 Kataryzna Brama from the Warsaw University of Technology, Faculty of Chemistry/Chair of Analytical Chemistry performed a Erasmus + Traineeship in the department Marine Bioanalytical Chemistry to get familiar with different new hyphenated techniques and their application for elemental speciation analysis of environmental samples. Kataryzna is working as a PhD student in the group of Prof. Kasia Pawlak. The focus of her thesis is on the identification and determination of metallocomplexes extracted from genetically modified plants with different trace elements such as Ni, Cd, Fe, Cu, Zn.

During her stay Kataryzna was involved in the setup and optimization of a GC-ICP-MS method for speciation analysis of priority contaminants in marine sediments .

From 01.04.2016 until 31.05.2016 Anika Retzman from the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences in Vienna (Austria) joined the department Marine Bioanalytical Chemistry.

Since November 2015 Anika is working as a PhD student at the Department of Chemistry (BOKU-VIRIS research group) under the supervision of Prof. Thomas Prohaska, focusing on monitoring diagenesis of archaeological remains with respect to Sr and Pb isotopic measurements.

During her two-month research stay at Hereon Anika was involved in the development of a new automated matrix separation method (together with Tristan Zimmermann) for the simultaneous purification of Sr and Pb isotopes prior to their MC ICP-MS based analysis.

From 18.01.2016 until 04.03.2016 Kresimir Markuli from the INSTITUTE OF OCEANOGRAPHY AND FISHERIES, Laboratory of Chemical Oceanography and Sedimentology in Split (Croatia) joined the department of Marine Bioanalytical Chemistry.

Kresimir is currently working on his PhD thesis, which aims to assess recent historical changes in the environment recorded in short sediment cores from Eastern Adriatic Sea. Therefore changes in foraminiferal assemblages will be compared to changes in trace metal concentrations to interpret the environmental changes and to detect anthropogenic influence.

Methods used include light microscopy together with electron microscopy (SEM) for foraminiferal assemblages investigation as well as ICP-MS analysis for quantitative trace metal analysis. Particle size distributions will be measured using the SediGraph X-ray Sedimentation technique.

Sediment samples were collected using a gravity corer at 18 stations along three transects covering different regions of the Eastern Adriatic Sea, representing different depth condition and environments. Transects go from near shore stations to the deepest part of the Adriatic sea (1230 m). During his research stay Kresimir used the facilities of the department of Marine Bioanalytical Chemistry for the preparation and analysis of more than 200 Sediment samples using microwave acid digestion and ICP-MS-MS respectively.

Juan Soto Alvaredo (Photo: Daniel Pröfrock/Hereon)

March – December 2014

TiO2 nanoparticles, one of the most produced nanomaterial worldwide, are widely present in products accessible to the mass market like paints, cosmetics or sunscreens. Due to the extensively increase of production and variety of application of this engineered nanoparticles, their potential effects to the aquatic environments are of great concern.
Therefore, the aim of the project carried out during the research stay of the PhD student Juan Soto Alvaredo was the development of a new analytical method for the determination and characterization of TiO2 nanoparticles in coastal waters using FFF-ICP-MS/MS. Complementary methods like Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM) and Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) were used to confirm and support the results of this new technique.

Juan Soto Alvaredo, PhD student at the University of Oviedo, under the supervision of Dr. Jörg Bettmer and Dr. María Montes Bayón, joined the Department of Marine Bioanalytical Chemistry in March 2014 for a 10-month research stay.

Željka Strižak (Photo: Daniel Pröfrock/Hereon)

October - November 2012

Bioactive trace elements in coastal regions

The training and support EU Program: European cooperation in the field of scientific and technical research (COST) topic: “The ocean chemistry of bioactive trace elements and paleoclimate proxies” enables a short term scientific mission for the Croatian PhD Student Željka Strižak. This six week visit continues the cooperation with the Laboratory for Biological Effects of Metals; Division of Marine and Environmental Research at the Ruđer Bošković Institute (RBI), Zagreb which was initialized by a successful bilateral DAAD project in 2011.
The objective of this study is the analysis and assessment of trace metal exposure introduced by toxic antifouling agents in coastal areas under direct or indirect influence of maritime activities (marinas and ports). The determination of trace metal concentration in seawater as a starting point for metal uptake and their concentration and distribution in mussels as biologically available and potentially toxic metal fraction will be performed during this six week visit at the Department for Marine Bioanalytical Chemistry.

Prof. Naoki Furuta and Kaori Shigeta (Photo: Daniel Pröfrock/Hereon)

August 2008
and
August - October 2008

Prof. Dr. Naoki Furuta joins the Department for Marine Bioanalytical Chemistry for 4 weeks. He is Professor for Environmental Chemistry at the Department for Applied Chemistry, Faculty of Science and Engineering, Chou University Tokyo, Japan. His research interests include the development of analytical methods for trace element analysis in environmental and biological samples with a special focus on selenium and antimony compounds.

Together with Prof. Furuta his PhD student Kaori Shigeta joins the Department for marine Bioanalytical Chemistry. Kaori will stay in our laboratory untill the end of October. Her tentative title of the PhD thesis is " Selenium speciation and metabolism in mice under different nutritional statuses by using HPLC-ICP-MS". In our laboratory she will develop a new separation technique for selenium proteins in blood plasma based on affinity chromatography coupled with ICP-MS detection.

Dr. Blair D. Johnston (Photo: Heike Helmholz)

Juli-August, 2007
and
November 2007

Environmental and Molecular Fish Biology
School of Biosciences
University of Exeter
Hatherly Laboratories, Prince of Wales Road
Exeter, UK EX4 4PS

Research interests: The effects novel natural and anthropogenic xenobiotics in fish and other aquatic organisms.
I am working with the Marine Bioanalytical Chemistry group to investigate the toxicological properties of jellyfish (scyphozoan) toxins to fish and their ecological implications to coastal fisheries and aquaculture related industries. We are utilising a variety of analytical techniques at GKSS to separate and purify many bioactive compounds from the crude preparations of jellyfish venoms and test for physiological and biochemical effects utilising salmonid cell lines as a model test system.

Prof. Dr. Bin Hu (Photo: Andreas Prange/Hereon)

June 1st - August 31st, 2005
and
August 1st - November 30th, 2002

Wuhan University
Department of Chemistry
430072 Wuhan, China


Prof. Dr. Bin Hu joined the Department for Marine Bioanalytical Chemistry for 3 month for a second time. His first sabbatical stay of 4 month has been in 2002.
Prof. Hu is Professor of Chemistry at the Wuhan University in China. He is the vice-director of the Research Centre of Analytical Science. His research interests include hyphenated techniques in atomic and mass spectrometry for element species analysis in environmental and biological systems. Sample preparation for trace and rare earth element analytical chemistry belong to his research topics as well as Glow Discharge Spectroscopy for the direct analysis of solid materials.

Dr. Maria Montes Bayon (Photo: Antje Kakuschke/Hereon)

March 1st - May 31st, 2005

University of Oviedo
Department of Physical and Analytical Chemistry
Oviedo 33006 - Spain

Dr. Maria Montes-Bayón joined the Department of Marine Bioanalytical Chemistry at the Institute for Coastal Research for a research stay of 3 month. Dr. Montes-Bayón is presently contracted Research Scientist at the University of Oviedo under the "Ramón y Cajal" program. Before, she joint Prof. Joseph A. Caruso"s research group at the University of Cincinnati, USA as a Post-doctoral Fulbright fellowship and post-doctoral assistant. Her research interests are elemental speciation in biological samples.

Prof. Dr. Ryszard Lobinski (Photo: Andreas Prange/Hereon)

March 1st - May 31st, 2002

CNRS
Laboratoire de Chimie Analytique
Bio-Inorganique et Environnement
Centre Technologique Hélioparc
L.C.A.B.I.E. CNRS UMR 5034
2, Av du Président Angot
F-64053 Pau Cedex 9, France

Prof. Dr. R. Lobinski joined the Division of Physical and Chemical Analysis for a sabbatical stay of 3 months. Mr. Lobinski is research director at the French National Research Council (CNRS, Pau, France) and Professor of Chemistry at the Warsaw University of Technology. His research interests include trace metal speciation, development of hyphenated techniques, and the mechanistic description of trace metal interactions with biomolecules in living systems.

ICP-MS Anwendertreffen 2014 in Geesthacht – Ein voller Erfolg

Vom 15. bis zum 18.09.2014 trafen sich über 120 ICP-MS Anwender aus Deutschland, Österreich und der Schweiz am Helmholtz-Zentrum Hereon zum 24. ICP-MS Anwendertreffen und 11. Symposium Massenspektrometrische Verfahren Elementspurenanalyse. Diese Veranstaltungsreihe wird im 2-Jahres-Turnus durch die Fachgruppe „Element Massenspektrometrie“ der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Massenspektrometrie (DGMS) durchgeführt. Die lokale Organisation wurde in diesem Jahr von der Abteilung Marine Bioanalytische Chemie des Instituts für Küstenforschung übernommen.

In diesem Jahr sollte insbesondere dem wissenschaftlichen Nachwuchs ein entsprechendes Forum geboten werden, so dass hauptsächlich Doktoranden/innen als Vortragende zugelassen wurden. Eröffnet wurde die Veranstaltung durch den Plenarvortrag des Vizepräsidenten der ETH Zürich, Prof. Dr. Detlef Günther, der weltweit als führender Wissenschaftler im Bereich der Laserablation gilt. Neben 9 Plenarvorträgen bildeten insgesamt 25 Tagungsvorträge sowie 16 Posterbeiträge das vielseitige Tagungsprogramm, wobei die diesjährigen thematischen Schwerpunkte in den Bereichen Laserablation und Bildgebung, Nanopartikelanalyse, Elementspeziation sowie Isotopenanalytik zu finden waren.

Abgerundet wurde die Veranstaltung durch eine Firmenmesse mit 17 Ausstellern, die ihre aktuellen instrumentellen Entwicklungen bzw. neues Zubehör für die Elementanalyse und die Probenvorbereitung präsentierten sowie eine Firmen Vortragssession mit insgesamt 8 Beiträgen.

In 2 Jahren treffen sich die ICP-MS Anwender wieder, diesmal an der Universität in Siegen.

The next European Winter Conference on Plasma Spectrochemistry will be held at the ARLBERG-well.com in Sankt Anton am Arlberg, in Austria, on February 19 – 24, 2017. The conference will be organized by the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna in collaboration with the Helmholtz-Centre for Materials and Coastal Research, Geesthacht, Germany.

Details about registration, abstract submission, accommodation and the scientific program will be provided soon on the conference website

The seminar will take place in July / August 2018. For detailed information please visit the German site