Yiqi Su

Research Summary:

Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) have become a major environmental concern due to their ubiquitous, (semi-)persistence, long-range transportability, and potentially adverse effects on living organisms. Although extensive research has been carried out on monitoring PAHs in the environmental matrix, most of them have only restricted to a selected number of PAHs. A novel in vitro bioassay, Chemical luciferase gene expression (CALUX), was developed as an alternative to expensive analytical approach. In contrast to analytical instrument, it provides a relative potency estimate for the aryl hydrocarbon receptor-transactivation by PAH mixture as a whole. However, this technique is not yet widely used for screening or environmental monitoring due to its lack of validation. The objective of this research is to optimize and to validate the PAH-CALUX in both water and soil environment with analytical method.  In addition, an in vitro bioassay using amino acid (AA) specific for PAHs will be developed and be applied to water and soil samples. And the correlation will be discovered between PAH-CALUX and AA-based bioassay

Education:

Sept. 2019 - Sept. 2021: Master of Chemistry, VUB

June 2016 - Sept. 2020: Bachelor of Applied Chemistry, Sichuan University (SCU)

Funding:

China Scholarship Council

Keywords: 

Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, Chemical Luciferase gene expression, in vitro bioassay, environment, validation

Supervisors:

Prof. Marc Elskens

Prof. Yue Gao