ABC's Catalyst program - the Eureka prize ...

Vote for your favourite scientist.

Last night's nominee: Dr Francesco Pomati, Environmental Toxicologist, UNSW.

Excerpt from Catalyst:

Growing up in the lake district of Northern Italy, Dr Francesco Pomati always had a passion for water. So, it came as no surprise when he decided to research the toxicology of pharmaceuticals in aquatic environments.

We excrete a whopping 95% of our administered dose of pharmaceuticals, most of which ends up in Australian waterways and oceans. And while the effects of individual drugs are well known, the interaction and combined effect of pharmaceuticals in the environment is not.

Francesco’s work has shown that human as well as fish cells are affected by drugs at the concentrations routinely detected in surface waters. This has implications not only for the health of aquatic life, but also for humans, potentially through drinking recycled water.

Dr Francesco Pomati: Pollution is one of the problems of our day and I reckon we should all be concerned with pollution of our waterways.

I like to swim, to row and to dive and that passion led me to the study of pollution in our water ways.

I grew up in Italy I grew up in the lake region and I was surrounded by water. I saw water changing a lot the increasing power of humans rivers became sewers. My passion was further inspired by an Australian professor and thanks to him I came to Australia and I started studying problems associated with Australian waterways.

The research work for which I have been nominated for a Eureka prize deals with the toxicological effects of drugs as environmental pollutants in our waterways.

Narration: Pomati’s research has found that mixtures of drugs can affect the reproduction and life cycle of fish. If these sensitive, aquatic creatures at the bottom of the food chain are affected, Pomati believes there is a potential risk for humans.

Dr Francesco Pomati: If we take a sample from that water there we are probably able to detect every single drug that people take. Most of the drugs are excreted, 95% of the dose, and they end up in surface water because they are not degraded in sewage treatment plants.

In the laboratory we reproduced exactly the same mixture of drugs and then we studied them on human embryonic kidney cells and zebra fish liver cells.

Stuart Kahn: So what Francesco’s work shows is that the way that we’ve developed water quality standards is actually fundamentally flawed because we’ve looked at individual chemicals but when we mix a complex mixture of chemicals together even at very low concentrations we find out the toxicity can be quite different. And that has ramifications for drinking water and recycled water quality guidelines as well as environmental toxicity issues.

Dr Francesco Pomati: I think the most important thing is put particular drugs especially antibiotics and some anti-inflammatories in the list of priority chemicals to be monitored in the environment.

See - Catalyst - Eureka prize nominees.

Dr Khan's comments reflect concerns raised by some during the Toowoomba water debate - at the time the Toowoomba City Council and others called it scaremongering.

Given the plans to introduce recycled water into the drinking water supply in SEQ, we can only hope Dr Pomati works quickly ...