News

5. Mai 2025

Goethe University Frankfurt is participating as an official observer at the UN environmental conferences (BRS COPs) in Geneva. Representing the university is biologist Alisson Felipe Moraes Neves, a Fellow of the prestigious German Chancellor Fellowship by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation.

His research focuses on differences in the implementation of international environmental agreements in Germany and his home country, Brazil. He is based in the Department of Evolutionary Ecology and Environmental Toxicology under Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Henner Hollert.

The conferences address critical global issues such as hazardous waste, chemicals, and environmental protection—topics of both international and local relevance.

2. Mai 2025

Dr. Omowunmi Fred-Ahmadu is an accomplished Environmental Chemist from Afe Babalola University, Ado-Ekiti, Nigeria. She holds a PhD and MSc in Environmental Chemistry from Covenant University, Ota, as well as an Executive MBA in Management and a BSc in Chemistry from the University of Lagos, Akoka.

Dr. Fred-Ahmadu was awarded the prestigious Association of Commonwealth Universities (ACU) Blue Charter Fellowship in 2019, which supported her research on microplastics at the University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia. She was also selected for the African-German Network of Excellence in Science – Programme Advocating Women in Science (AGNES-PAWS) in 2020/2021.

Her research interests focus on the environmental pollution caused by tyre wear particles in road-deposited sediments, investigating their acute toxicity and potential impacts on early developmental stages of zebrafish (Danio rerio).

She is currently an Alexander von Humboldt Postdoctoral Research Fellow with the E3T Group at Goethe University Frankfurt am Main, Germany.

19. December 2024

Submit your paper to the special issue Chemical Pollution and Biodiversity Loss, which will be published in Science of the Total Environment! The submission deadline is 28 February 2025.

Instructions for manuscript submission:

1. Submit your manuscript through the journal's submission platform

2. During the submission process, select the article type: “VSI: PollutionBioLoss".

3. Proceed with file upload and submission.

We look forward to receiving your contributions!

Francisco Sylvester – Goethe University Frankfurt, Germany Henner Hollert – Goethe University Frankfurt, Germany

Diana Miguez – LATU Foundation (Latitud), Uruguay

Fabiana Lo Nostro – Universidad de Buenos Aires, Argentina 

01. October 2024

Alisson Felipe Moraes Neves, a Brazilian researcher and German Chancellor Fellow from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, has joined the Department of Evolutionary Ecology and Environmental Toxicology (E3T) at Goethe University Frankfurt as a guest researcher. His work focuses on analyzing the implementation of the Basel Convention in Brazil and Germany, with an emphasis on hazardous waste management. With extensive experience in environmental policy and diplomacy, Alisson aims to contribute to sustainable practices. His research is part of the "Robust Nature" initiative, which addresses the links between pollution, climate change, and biodiversity loss.

01. October 2024

We're excited to welcome Florencia Liquin to our Department Evolutionary Ecology and Environmental Toxicology (E3T) of the Goethe University Frankfurt. Over the next year, Flor will be conducting her postdoctoral research with an ALEARG scholarship between DAAD German Academic Exchange Service and the Argentine government, focusing on the interactions of chemicals and parasites in invasive and native gammarids in collaboration with Henner Hollert, Francisco Sylvester, Jonas Jourdan, Sarah Cunze, Anna Gabriel, and Sven Klimpel.

17. September 2024

As part of the RoadTox project, Markus Schmitz, PhD student at E3T, is investigating the toxicity of road runoff and tyre and road abrasion on our aquatic environment. In collaboration with the LOEWE-TBG, led by Prof. Dr Markus Pfenninger and PhD student Lorenzo Rigano from the Senckenberg Biodiversity and Climate Research Centre Frankfurt (SBiK-F), we investigated the toxicity of particles retained in a road runoff treatment system using the model organism Chironomus riparius. The study showed that the sediment caused a variety of ecotoxicological effects, including reduced fecundity, oxidative stress and increased mortality. The study was supported by a comprehensive chemical characterisation in collaboration with the Institute of Environmental Engineering at RWTH Aachen University and the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research, which revealed a complex mixture of different tyre and traffic-related pollutants, highlighting the complexity of particles in road runoff and emphasising the urgent need for further research and measures to reduce the emission of tyre and road abrasion particles into the environment.

05. August 2024

Find attached the link to our most recent joint publication in Science of the Total Environment (STOTEN) on challenging the OECD practice on using only one daphnia strain for assessing chemicals, like #phenanthreen. Congrats to our PhD student Florian Gigl. This was again a great cooperation between the #RobustNature excellence network at Goethe-Universität Frankfurt and University of Birmingham, Luisa Orsini, Centre for Environmental Research and Justice (CERJ).

16. July 2024

Last Tuesday, we celebrated the Award of the President with our three Goethe Research Experience Program (GREP) Fellows, Leland, Jules & Alicia, for their successful participation in the GREP program together with the other 20 GREP fellows, their supervisors and our president Enrico Schleiff. Leland, Jules & Alicia came from the University of Saskatchewan in Canada for the researtch stay to Goethe-Universität Frankfurt and were able to conduct their research in the #RobustNature Network of Excellence and the #Sustainability & Biodiversity profile area. Lelan worked on toxic contaminants found in gravel road dust, Jules worked on #toxicity assays and behavioural tests to determine the effects of antimicrobials and Alicia on the #neurotoxic effects of chemical warfare agents. It was a great experience for Dr. Sarah Johann, Markus Schmitz and me to supervise these three excellent students within the GREP program. The program enabled the students to work on small research projects in Frankfurt for 3-4 months together with the two Candian supervisors Markus Brinkmann and Markus Hecker to work on exciting projects in the field of environmental research, but also to learn about German culture and values as well as leadership skills. The research projects will even result in joint manuscripts for publication in international journals. Big thanks to the GREP program and GREP team (Leonora Jürgens, Lisa Pfeiffer et al.) for this great opportunity for students and scientists: not only have the students been able to conduct inspiring research with the program, but the established researchers can also intensify their collaboration with the small projects.

16.-21.June 2024

Great to participate the World Biodiversity Forum 2024 in Davos. Under the theme From Science to Action, the third World Biodiversity Forum brings together researchers across all disciplines of biodiversity science with practitioners and societal actors to explore how to move from science to actions and solutions to conserve biodiversity and set us on a path towards transformation for sustainability. I am pleased to chair a session together with Thomas Backhaus and Ksenia Groh on „Chemical pollution as a driver of biodiversity decline: data, concepts and policy options“. Furthermore, Flurina Schneider and the teams from ISOE – Institut für sozial-ökologische Forschung and Senckenberg Gesellschaft für Naturforschung will organize here a workshop on the Science Policy Interface under pressure - what is needed for informing transformative change.

05.-09.June 2024

It was great to participate with our group and Jörg Oehlmanns group from Goethe University in Frankfurt at the SETAC Europe meeting in Seville. Congratulations to Florian, Markus and Inska for their successful presentations! As always, the meeting was a great experience and a great opportunity to meet all peers again. We were also able to get involved aside from the scientific stage: Stella is now a member of the SETAC Student Advisory Council (SAC) and Bianca has been elected to the SETAC Europe Council (SEC) as student representative for one year. Congratulations and good luck! Looking already forward to next year Meeting in Vienna !

30. May 2024

The decline of insect biodiversity and biomass has become a much-discussed public issue in recent years, although this trend has been evident for decades. Even though the reasons for the decline in insect populations are manifold and cannot be attributed to a single cause, the use of pesticides is considered to be one of the main drivers. In this context, the joint publication by scientists from the RobustNature consortium (Justus Liebig University Giessen, Goethe University Frankfurt and LOEWE Centre for Translational Biogenomics) summarises the current findings on the sublethal effects of pesticides on insects. These lower concentration ranges already have an impact on the physiology of insects and their behaviour and thus also on their health and reproductive success. Manifestation of the effects depends on various factors such as age, sex and species. Despite the importance of these consequences, the effects of sublethal concentrations and their impact on the decline in insect populations have not yet been sufficiently investigated and should therefore be given more attention in research.

29. May 2024

We just published a new paper on improving the predictive ability of the fish embryo acute toxicity (FET) test via inclusion of a biotechnological metabolization system. We were able to show that for the substance allyl alcohol, the inclusion of metabolism systems led to a significantly higher comparability of FET data and values derived from acute fish test with juvenile fish. The application of the presented method in specific cases could strengthen the use of FET as an alternative to the acute fish test and thus reduce the use of vertebrates for the evaluation of fish toxicity.

28. May 2024

Bianca Dechent has won the "Frankfurter Preis für Umwelt & Nachhaltigkeit 2024" for her Master Thesis on the Impact of crude oil on early sensory organ development in zebrafish. The thesis was embedded in the SensoryTox project, a Synergyfund project funded by Goethe University led by Sarah Johann. Congratulations also to the other award winners.

We further congratulate Bianca for her doctoral scholarship from the "Deutsche Bundesstiftung Umwelt", that she will start soon.

21.-22. May 2024

Great participating a strategy workshop and a GSI / FAIR event on behalf of the Federal Minsitry of Education and Research and the Indian IGSTC. Scientists and representatives of Indo- German collaboration from both sides celebrate the 50th anniversary of signing the Indo-German Science and Technology Cooperation Agreement and discussing new collaboration schemes for the future. We are grateful for beeing supported with our joint BMBF-IGSTC project efectroH2O.

18. April 2024

Lucija Sara Kovačić, a Master's student from the Department of Biology at the Josip Juraj Strossmayer University in Osijek, Croatia, is currently doing an ERASMUS traineeship at E3T. Her work here focuses on assessing the toxicological effects of pharmaceuticals on zebrafish (Danio rerio) at the developmental and behavioural levels. During the traineeship, she will also be involved in establishing a protocol for ecotoxicological testing using the marine medaka (Oryzias latipes) as a model organism.

12. February 2024

Aquatic animals and consumers of aquatic animals are exposed to increasingly complex mixtures of known and as-yet-unknown chemicals with dioxin-like toxicities in the water cycle. Effect- and cell-based bioanalysis can cover known and yet unknown dioxin and dioxin-like compounds as well as complex mixtures thereof but need to be standardized and integrated into international guidelines for environmental testing. To extend our bioassay portfolio, we participated in an international laboratory testing following ISO/CD 24295 to generate precision data for the development of a full ISO-standard for the DR CALUX system. The results of this ring test have now been published and are available as via the link below.

Behnisch, P., Besselink, H., Suzuki, G., Buchinger, S., Reifferscheid, G., Lukas, M., Wollenweber, M., Wollenweber, S., Hollert, H., Kunisue, T., Tue, N.M., Alijagic, A., Larsson, M., Engwall, M., Ohno, K., Brouwer, A., 2024. Results of an international interlaboratory study on dioxin-like activities in drinking-, river surface- and wastewater using DR CALUX bioassay. Science of The Total Environment 170759. 

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2024.170759

05. January 2024

It has long been suspected that raccoons are a threat to native biodiversity. A study provides new information. Two pairs of raccoons were released at Lake Edersee in Hesse in 1934. Today, it is estimated that well over a million specimens of the North American predator roam our meadows and forests. Read about the effects here.