During 30 August – 2 September 2023, the 18th International Conference on Environmental Science and Technology (CEST2023) was successfully held in Athens, Greece

Organized by the Global Network of Environmental Science and Technology jointly with the University of the Aegean (Greece) and the National and Kapodis

trian University of Athens (Greece) and academically supported by the University of Salerno (Italy), University of Cincinnati (USA) and Open university of Cyprus. This year the conference included 47 sessions running in 5 parallel rooms. The sessions covered 28 unique scientific topics with around 600 oral, flash and poster presentations.

Besides co-organizing and attending the conference, TrAMS group participated in 3 sessions with 14 presentations.

Figure 1: Prof. Nikolaos Thomaidis (Head of TrAMS group), Dr. Pablo Gago Ferrero (Head of Expo-Hum group and former member of TrAMS group) and TrAMS group members at the 18th International Conference on Environmental Science and Technology, in Athens.

Scientific results of several environmental research projects of the group in collaboration with national and European institutes and universities were displayed in the conference.

The TrAMS group leader Professor Nikolaos S. Thomaidis, as a core member of CEST Organizing Committee chaired the Conference Opening Ceremony. Moreover, Professor Nikolaos S. Thomaidis and Dr. Nikiforos Alygizakis chaired the sessions of ‘Emerging Pollutants’.

TrAMS group post-doctoral researchers, Ph.D. candidates, M.Sc. students or other collaborators presented the following research projects:

Session: Emerging pollutants

  • Wide-scope target and suspect screening of antibiotics in effluent wastewater from wastewater treatment plants in Europe (oral presentation, CEST ID: 74)

Ng K., Alygizakis N., Thomaidis N., Slobodnik J.

  • Assessing the performance of an integrated column system containing zero valent iron nanoparticles and sodium persulfate solution for the removal of emerging contaminants from different wastewater matrices – Identification of transformation products (Poster/Flash presentation, CEST ID: 243)

Barka E., Nika M.C., Galani A., Mamais D., Thomaidis N., Malamis S., Noutsopoulos C.

  • Determination of the effect of environmentally relevant pH values on the toxicity, uptake & biotransformation of Propranolol in zebrafish embryos by LC-HRMS (Poster/Flash presentation, CEST ID: 518)

Panagopoulou E.I., Damalas D.E., Aleiferi E., Tzepkinli V.A., Schweizer M., Heid C., Köhler H.-R., Von Der Ohe P., Triebskorn R., Thomaidis N.S.

  • Novel polymer-based MALDI matrices: exploring their potential for low molecular weight compound detection, utilizing MALDI-HRMS analytical platforms (Poster/Flash presentation, CEST ID: 520)

Aleiferi E., Tsakanika M., Damalas D., Kritikou A., Sakellariou G., Thomaidis N.

  • Investigating the occurrence of >2,400 organic micropollutants in different tissues of Eurasian otters leveraging LC- and GC-HRMS techniques (Oral presentation, CEST ID: 527)

Konomi A., Gkotsis G., Nika M.C., Chadwick E., O’Rourke E., Farrington C., Potter E., Thomaidis N.

  • Unveiling the occurrence of organic micropollutants in different species of terrestrial mesocarnivores utilizing HRMS techniques (Poster/Flash presentation, CEST ID: 524)

Boinis N., Diamanti K. S., Panagopoulou E. I., Gkotsis G., Maragou N., Nika M. C., Vasilatos K., Höpker K. A., Schäfer H., Wieczorek M., Osteraurer R., Thomaidis N. S.

  • Targeted and untargeted trend analysis in historic samples of top predators and their preys (Poster/Flash presentation, CEST ID: 543)

Bouta D., Alygizakis N., Gkotsis G., Nika M.C., Orfanioti A., Bizani E., Badry A., Chadwick E., Cincinelli A., Claßen D., Danielsson S., Dekker R., Duke G., Glowacka N., Jansman H., Knopf B., Koschorreck J., Krone O., Martellini T., Movalli P., Persson S., O’Rourke E., Siebert U., Treu G., Van den Brink N., Walker L., Slobodnik J., Thomaidis N.

  • Predominant chemical mixtures in top predators and their prey in Europe (Poster/Flash presentation, CEST ID: 544)

Kostopoulou N., Alygizakis N., Gkotsis G., Nika M.C., Orfanioti A., Bizani E., Badry A., Chadwick E., Cincinelli A., Claßen D., Danielsson S., Dekker R., Duke G., Glowacka N., Jansman H., Knopf B., Koschorreck J., Krone O., Martellini T., Movalli P., Persson S., Roos A., O’Rourke E., Siebert U., Treu G., Van den Brink N., Walker L., Slobodnik J., Thomaidis N. [544]

  • Holistic investigation of PFAS in pregnant women biological samples (Poster presentation, CEST ID: 590)

Alirai S., Gill-Solsona R., Alygizakis N., Thomaidis N.S., Marquès M., Gago-Ferrero P.

Session: Environmental health

  • Development and application of a LC-HRMS method for the identification and quantification of CECs concern in urine (oral presentation, CEST ID: 53)

Gutiérrez-Martín D., Sánchez-Resino E., Restrepo E., Golovko O., López-Serna R., Marquès M., Aalizadeh R., Thomaidis N., Gago-Ferrero P., Gil-Solsona R.

  • The chemical exposome in maternal blood and placenta and the potential use of sewage sludge to prioritize hazardous substances (oral presentation, CEST ID: 52)

Gil-Solsona R., Nika M.C., Alygizakis N., Bustamante M., Villanueva C.M., Gutiérrez- Martín D., Restrepo E., Foraster M., Gómez-Roig M.D., Llurba-Olive E., Sunyer J., Dadvand P., Thomaidis N., Gago-Ferrero P.

  • Socioeconomic status and public health in Australia: A wastewater-based study (Oral presentation, CEST ID: 516)

Rousis N., Li Z., Bade R., McLachlan M., Mueller J., O’Brien J., Tscharke B., Thomaidis N., Thomas K.

  • The NORMAN Antibiotic Resistance Bacteria and Genes Database (NORMAN ARB&ARG): let’s collaborate to manage risk of Antibiotic Resistance (Oral presentation, CEST ID: 459)

Alygizakis N., Ng K., Bijlsma L., Cerqueira F., Čirka L., Deviller G., Fortunato G., Kampouris I., Lai F., Lundy L., Marano R., Paulus G., Radu E., Ślipko K., Tadić Đ., Thomaidis N., Slobodnik J., Fatta-Kassinos D.

Session: Wastewater-Based Epidemiology

  • Wastewater surveillance of the most common circulating respiratory viruses in the city of Attica (Poster presentation, CEST ID: 517)

Zafeiriadou A., Kaltsis L., Kostakis M., Kapes V., Thomaidis N., Markou A