Pharmaceuticals in Marine and Coastal Environments: Occurrence, Effects, and Challenges in a Changing World

Dr. Durán-Álvarez is a Mexican chemical engineer, holding a PhD in Environmental Engineering by the National Autonomous University of Mexico (2013). He has worked in the field of the contaminants of emerging concern since 2006, validating analytical techniques based on gas and liquid chromatography coupled to mass spectrometry. Since then, Dr. Durán-Álvarez gained expertise in the quantification of pharmaceutical compounds, personal care products and other endocrine disrupting chemicals in water, soil, sediments and biota samples. As a part of his PhD, he studied the environmental fate of contaminants of emerging concern, with emphasis on the distribution and leaching of these pollutants through irrigated soils where untreated wastewater is reused. Dr. Durán-Álvarez has held the charge of Associated Researcher in the Laboratory of Environmental Nanotechnology of the National Autonomous University of Mexico since 2015. As a part of this charge he had to diversify his research interests, starting with the study of the synthesis routes to obtain semiconductor materials. From 2016, the eclectic scientific production of Dr. Durán-Álvarez encompasses a) the validation of analytical techniques based on chromatography coupled to mass spectrometry to quantify emerging pollutants in environmental matrices; b) the occurrence and environmental fate of emerging pollutants in the urban water cycle as well as in drylands reusing wastewater; c) the synthesis of nanosized semiconductor materials and their characterization as photocatalysts to remove emerging pollutants from water; and most recently, d) the dryland development paradigm. Following these interests, he has established fruitful collaboration with universities from Latin America and Africa in order to create research networks to strengthen the investigation in his research areas in developing countries.