Research proposals for 2005 research programme were solicited in December 2004 under the overarching theme of ¡®Sound Management of Hazardous Chemicals¡¯. In comparison to the previous proposal solicitation, three focal topic areas were specified in the announcement and it was also noted that priority would be given to cooperative works with researchers from developing countries and UN organizations. Among 29 proposals from eight developing countries as well as several domestic research institutes, 16 proposals were selected through an expert evaluation process in which the Scientific Advisory Board members reviewed each proposal based on the merit criteria (see Table below). Selected research projects will be supported up until December 2005, with a research fund ranging from 15 million to 20 million Korean Won.

Water is the elixir, without water life is nothing. But this most delicious natural resource is being sullied day by day due to unabated and uncontrolled human activities. Fresh water reservoir of surface is the worst affected and the need for alternative source of potable water is utmost requisite. Ground water of subsurface aquifer was deem to be safe for long, but now it has become the most unsafe source of drinking water because of arsenic contamination. The problem of arsenic in the Ganges delta region of Bangladesh is very complex. It may be noted that Deltaic floodplain of the GBM river system, more so the active part of it, has the highest vulnerability in respect of groundwater arsenic contamination. The prime importance of the present study is to understand the vulnerability of the Meghna and Ganges basin in terms of the geographical and geochemical mapping. It has also very high significance in determining the physical and chemical status of the sediment and as well as water of the two major floodplains, the Ganges and the Meghna basins at different layers. This will help the geologists and ground water engineers in locating safe sites for both shallow and deep tubewell. Another important feature of this research is to locate places where pyrite oxidation or oxihydroxided reduction is predominant. Also assessment of biological contaminants in ground water samples will give prevalence in this research project. Apart from the assessing intensity of arsenic contamination in aquifer soil and water with respect to various water quality parameters and to analyze the extent of its impact on the environment, the mitigative options is the prime objective of the research project. A good understanding of these objectives will lead to offer a quantitative estimate of average arsenic contamination of groundwater and aquifer soil at different depths at different time intervals round the year. Bio-geo-chemical and geographical maps so prepared of the study areas, which will help to find out suitable locations for arsenic free drinking water. This will also help to find out effective aquifer soil profile of the study area, which will help to understand the leaching profile of arsenic in that areas. It will also identify the appropriate policy and program interventions in order to face the possible fate of arsenic contamination of environment in general and food chain in particular. The study will also develop a scientific methodology to make similar study elsewhere under similar conditions. Above all low cost and indigenous arsenic removing filter system will be disbursed to the highly vulnerable community.

This research proposes to study lead levels in various food items being consumed in Kanpur, India for rural and urban populations to assess the dietary intake of lead and to estimate blood lead levels, a biomarker of lead toxicity. For this purpose, sampling of food products, laboratory analysis and computational exercises will be undertaken. It is proposed to cover six food groups (leafy vegetables, non-leafy vegetables, fruits, pulses, cereals and milk) and drinking water for estimating lead intake. Additionally air quality sampling for lead will be undertaken or data will be collected from secondary sources. Within each food group, several individual food items will be considered. For example, under the group pulses, seven different types of pulses will be sampled and subjected to analysis for lead content. In order to get representative samples, vegetables and fruits will be purchased from four major vegetables/food markets spread over the entire city as per the purchasing pattern by rural and urban populations. Based on lead levels in food items and in air, the estimated lead intakes will be translated into the resultant blood lead concentrations for children and adults using a PBPK (Physiologically Based Pharmacokinetic) model. The PBPK model is a compartmental model based on kinetics of lead uptake, and its distribution in organs and blood and its elimination from the body. In this study probability of exceeding safe blood lead level (i.e. 10 mg/dL) will be examined the impact of gasoline lead phase-out policy intervention undertaken by regulatory agencies in India.

Fecal Indicator Bacteria (FIB), the sources of which are often unknown, have an undesirable impact on a society and human health. To reduce the impacts of fecal pollution in receiving water, many management protocols have been developed. However, most of the approaches for the pollution reduction would not be effective at urban sites under highly complex environmental conditions. Therefore, it is important to establish a FIB management system in a watershed scale. In this study we will develop how to set up the best management practice (BMP) protocol by monitoring FIB in Yong-san River and how to control FIB loading into receiving water by understanding FIB fate and transport in Yong-san River watershed. Field experiments will be designed to find the correlation between FIB and biochemical oxygen demand (BOD). The results will suggest a new monitoring and management protocols for Yong-san River watershed. The proposed methodology will be applied to locate and quantify sources of pollution in Yong-san Lake, and it should be applicable to a wide array of contaminants.

Arsenic is a significantly toxic contaminant in ground water supplies in many countries including USA, Germany, Bangladesh, India, China, Vietnam, and Cambodia. Previous studies have been shown that arsenic may cause serious diseases for liver and especially skin. In order to reduce the human health risk, the World Health Organization (WHO) recommended a maximum arsenic concentration of 10 ppb in drinking water in 1993. The USEPA adopted the WHO guideline of 10 ppb of arsenic as the drinking water standard in 2001. The recent results obtained from the samples collected in Vietnam showed significant arsenic levels in ground water sources (much higher than the WHO¡¯s standard). Most of them are in use now; this fact may cause strongly harmful effects to the communities¡¯ health. A variety of technologies have been used for the removal of arsenic from water. However, more effective and economic water treatment processes have to be developed to meet more stringent arsenic standards. Moreover, it has been shown that, the chemical and physical characteristics of the water sources are of the main factors that could influence on the efficiency of treatment methods. Therefore, further investigations in the real fields are needed to be sure whether the removal can be successfully applied or not. Along with the efforts to improve the removal technologies, the mobility of arsenic in the solid phase should be considered in order to avoid secondary pollution. Water treatment systems generate a large amount of sludge and liquid waste with high arsenic content. This hazard waste has high potential to cause risk if exposed to environment, and the wastes released have to be treated and disposed off properly.

Recently, a wide variety of chemicals that have been identified to disrupt endocrine system of animals such fish, bird, other wildlife and even humans. These so-called endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs) which have been introduced into the aquatic system and organisms through the discharge from industries, manufactures, wastewaters, and so on. There are several ways in which chemicals can affect the endocrine system: for example, they can bind to hormone receptors and either mimic or inhibit the action of natural hormones, or they can affect their synthesis and metabolism. Research to date has been mainly focused on xenoestrogens or oestrogen-like compounds that mimic the biological activities of the female endogenous hormone oestrogen, causing a feminizing or oestrogenic effect. The degree to which aquatic organisms are being affected by EDCs is currently debated. However, good evidence exists that potentially adverse effects occur in some wildlife at the individual and population levels, caused by disruption of one or more endocrine systems. Moreover, little is known of the chemical composition and activities of the EDC mixtures in the municipal waste water treatment plant (WWTP) influents and effluents. Recently researches show that EDCs have effects to the animals including fish species. This research also will try to figure out the sexual transition of some fish species in the river that related to the effluents of WWTP in the following years.

An international campaign named ABC EAREX2005 (Atmospheric Brown Clouds East Asia Regional Experiment 2005) is scheduled to be conducted at Gosan, Jeju Island, from February 20st to April 10th, 2005. In this study, the East Asian Atmospheric Brown Clouds will be investigated, using a newly developed 3-D Eulerian model named EAAQuM (East Asian Air Quality Model). Main features of the EAAQuM model are that a new size-resolved dust generation module (ADAM: Asian Dust Aerosol Model) and a newly developed sulfate formation parameterization in aerosols and cloud droplets are included (Park and In, 2003; Park and Lee, 2004; Song, 2005). Using these state-of-the-art parameterizations in the 3-D chemistry-transport modeling, chemical and optical data measured at Gosan, Jeju Island during ABC EAREX2005 campaign period will be comprehensively analyzed and interpreted. More importantly, satellite-borne aerosol optical depth (AOD) from several platforms like MODIS and/or MISR will be compared with model-borne predictions. The domain-wide column concentration comparison between model-borne and satellite-borne AODs as well as the comparison at Gosan super site between ground-borne and model-borne values may provide scientists with a good opportunity for more thoroughly investigating the aerosol generation and transport characteristics in East Asia.

This project investigates the extent of bisphenol A affecting the endocrine disruption in the presence of high and low concentrations of phytoestrogens. The effect of bisphenol A on the endocrine system is well established and its action on the estrogenic receptors is well documented. Phytoestrogens are also known to affect the same estrogen receptors as bisphenol A, and possibly the other similar related receptors causing estrogenic effect on the respective tissues. This study aims to investigate the combined effect of these exposures by measuring the indirect expressions of the effects. This is important in helping to explain the effects of exposure of combination of bisphenol A and phytoestrogens on the biological system. The study starts with assessment of bisphenol A present in human body, by measuring the levels of bisphenol A and phytoestrogens in cord blood of babies. The amount of phytoestrogens can be compared to the levels of bisphenol A. Simultaneously, animal studies to assess the effect of bisphenol A and phytoestrogens will be carried out to investigate for any endocrine disruption effect and morphological differences of the selected tissues under study. The final part of the study is to examine the levels of reproductive hormones of laboratory animals that were exposed to these chemicals and to assess the reproductive hormones of healthy volunteers taking more phytoestrogen rich diet with those taking low phytoestrogen diet. The results of this study is expected to explain if there is any significant difference in the human reproductive hormones (estrogens, estradiol and testosterones) among people (males) taking phytoestrogen rich diet. The animal studies are expected to reveal any significant enhancement or reduction of the effect of phytoestrogens or bisphenol when they are exposed together to the experimental animals. It is hoped that the study may yield the necessary data to the government and other relevant agencies involved in decision-making and enforcement in their effort to curb pollution of hazardous chemicals, and by health authorities to predict emerging diseases and possible defects in the population

Previous investigation of the types and levels of PAHs in PM10 air particulate in the greater Manila area showed concentrations of potentially carcinogenic PAHs much above 1ng/m3 benzopyrene, the WHO benchmark for no significant risk to cancer (Santiago, 2004). PAHs have also been linked to estrogenic effects-causing increase in the uterine weight and breast cancer (Zacharewski, 2001). Notwithstanding these studies that have shown the adverse effects, PAHs are considered non-criteria pollutants and are not regulated in the Clean-Air Act nor controlled by the Philippines Air Quality Standards. As of 1998, breast cancer has been the leading cause of cancer deaths in the Philippines (NSCB, 1998). Thus, this project aims to investigate the effect of the different types and levels of PAHs in air in some selected urban and rural residential areas on the proliferation of human breast cells. The project may be able to show that the levels of PAHs in the urban residential areas have significant effect on breast cell proliferation and may infer that women in the urban areas have greater potential risk to breast cancer. The project aims to do the following:

The study may be able to generate some data that could support a policy to control PAH emission. The project may be regarded as first phase of the bigger research program to investigate the mechanism of the molecular effects of PAHs in breast cancer cell proliferation and possible study on health effects of PAHs on human population.

High arsenic contamination in drinking water derived from groundwater has found at a large number of wells, especially at some most populated countries in the world like India, Bangladesh, China, and Vietnam. One of the most important steps in mitigation strategy at the countries is mass blanket screenings of all wells as soon as possible. The novel bacteria biosensor Escherichia coli DH 5a (pJAMA8-arsR) has become as promising alternative approach beside the conventional but not enough accurate chemical based field tests. Therefore, in this study a suitable protocol using bacteria luminescence biosensor for arsenic determination will be developed. Groundwater sample will be taken and preserved by several chemicals to avoid the precipitation of Fe and re-adsorption of arsenic. Effects of Fe onto arsenic response of biosensor and relief complexon agents will be tested. The feasibility of the biosensor for mass arsenic monitoring will be evaluated based on false negative and false positive identification that is calculated from experimental analysis data gathered parallelly from measurements using both biosensor and atomic absorption spectrometer. Primary study on immobilization resulting in a long storage of bacteria in purpose of the improved enhancement of the applicability of biosensor base field test will also be attempted.

Phytoremediation became a promising way to remove heavy metals from wastewater. Dealt with this process, some aquatic plants are potential and grow well in Indonesia such as Azolla microhpylla, Eichhornia crassipes, and Lemna minor. Therefore, this study will be aimed to investigate the capacity of those aquatic plants in accumulating heavy metals from wastewater. A serial experiment will be conducted and divided into 3 steps. First step will be addressed on characterization of those aquatic plants according to agronomical, physiological and ecological aspects. The results will be used to determine the plant, which has high capability in heavy metal uptake and resistance. Second step will be focused on optimization of condition that is conducive for metals uptake by the selected plant. In this step, plant biomass density, water level, and flow rate will be varied in order to obtain optimum condition. Third step is a field experiment at pilot plan scale to apply the selected plant for reducing heavy metal in industrial wastewater. The results of these serial experiments are expected to establish an alternative technology for remediating heavy metals contaminated wastewater in tropical countries especially Indonesia.

The changing of human habit to consume organic agricultural product is recently greatly increasing. However there is almost no agricultural land, which are free of toxic compound originated from previous applied of protecting plant, such as pesticides or artificial chemical fertilizer. The contaminated water is sometime being used for agricultural purposes. In fact contamination of lowland rice fields by sewage sludge from textile plants and gold mining has increased the heavy metal content of the soil and even reduced rice yields. The monitoring and study of recovery pathway of polluted to natural agricultural land are the key factor for backing up the production of healthy food with environmentally friendly method. Microbial degradation has been considered as an efficient way of removing pollutan and also as bioindicator to rapidly screen and identify heavy metals in environmental samples. Therefore microbiological approach is one of the suitable methods to monitor and remediate the polluted agricultural land for supporting organic agriculture. The first main experiment in this research project is survey the status of soil pollution of intensive agricultural land. The first location surveys will be conducted in the textile wastes contaminated lowland rice. The different sampling locations will be based on the distant from the pollution sources. The second location survey will be in the upper land agriculture. Since the degree of pollution depends on land use, therefore the sampling area will be in the intensive, less and not intensive agricultural land. To study the correlation between pollutions status and microbial activity, therefore the activity and population density of microbial denitrifier from all collected sample will be analyzed. It is expected that denitrification activity may serve as early indicator for predicting species and soil pollution status. The second main experiments will be bioremidiation of heavy metals and pesticides polluted soil under green house experiments. The heaviest polluted soil sample from the survey will be treated with compost enriched heavy metals tolerant and pesticides degrader microorganisms under green house experiments. The pollutant status, the activity and population density of microbial denitrifier will be analyzed. It may serve as model for rapid field bioremidiation.

During two years of our research supported by UNU/ISTS Research Program, we studied the effects of BPA on the survival of C. elegans and found a condition in which over 90% of the wild type worms were killed by BPA treatment. In order to identify genes that may function in pathways affected by BPA treatment, a genetic screen for mutants resistant to BPA was carried out. As results, we have isolated five mutants showing approximately 60% to 90% of survival rate on BPA treated plates and named as bpr (bisphenol resistant) mutants. To solve whether the resistance that bpr mutants showed on BPA was general phenotype to all EEDCs, we decided to test specificity of bpr resistance to BPA. We chose another type of EEDCs, nonylphenol (NP). When NP was treated to bpr mutants, they showed only moderate resistance to nonylphenol. Therefore we can suggest that bpr mutants indeed show specific resistance to BPA rather than general EEDCs. The objective of the current project is screening and identifying the genes for target proteins of endocrine disrupting compounds (EDCs) using a model animal, and understanding the molecular mechanism of EDC on mammalian homologous target proteins. Overall Contents of the Research include:

Of recent environmental concern is the presence of antibiotics in ecological systems caused by the application of antibiotics to agricultural production systems as disinfection agents and the application of manure as fertilizer. Oxytetracycline is the most commonly used antibiotic in agricultural production. The biodegradation of oxytetracycline in agricultural systems is not yet well understood. The biodegradation of oxytetracycline in soil and water is of considerable interest because of their effects and migration into groundwater and surface water. Moreover, we reported that oxytetracycline-resistant bacteria were found in waters at a giant-prawn farm in which oxytetracycline was previously used. This raises concerns that oxytetracycline used in aquaculture may play a role in selecting for oxytetracycline resistance among foodborne bacteria. Metabolites resulting from the biotransformation of these drugs may have either enhanced or reduced biological activity compared to the parent compound, and may affect the microbial ecology of these systems. In this study we will investigate the ability of microbes to degrade oxytetracycline, and we will also identify the metabolites produced during the biodegradation process.

Environmental remediation of heavy metals is an important issue in both many industrial and developing countries such as Chile, South Africa, and Kazakhstan. Consequently, the development of novel systems for environmental remediation of such toxic and environmentally hazardous elements has been the focus of many research efforts. In the study proposed a novel and sustainable technology based on the use of biodegradable macromolecular agents in conjunction with membrane filtration will be developed and studied. To this end, novel biodegradable agents will be synthesized and characterized. Their application potential will be assessed and include detailed investigation of the properties of the materials. Their metal removing ability will be tested in view of the capacity and different reaction and processing parameters. The biodegradability of the new materials will be evaluated using different micro-organisms in simulation of standard environmental conditions. In addition, it is planned to screen this method as a possibility for the remediation of POPs and EDCs. The exclusive use of water as a solvent employs the principle of sustainability for this technology. The study is planned in collaboration with the university and other institutes of a developing country (Chile), where the metal pollution is of major concern and causes substantial economical and hazardous problems. The longstanding collaboration with the University of Concepcion in Chile will be the base for this collaborative study. The materials and technology developed are expected to be transferred to this country and screened in situ for practical application and scale-up processing of this environmentally friendly technology.

In recent years, there has been growing concern about the occurrence of endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs) and pharmaceuticals in the aquatic environment. Since surface water is widely used as water resource for drinking water, the widespread occurrence of these emerging hazardous chemicals poses a problem to water treatment utilities. Various compounds such as pesticides, PCBs, dioxins, surfactants, phthalates, bisphenol-A, 17¥â-estradiol, and estrone are included in the category of EDC, because they are known to have adverse effects such as feminization of various male animals even at extremely low concentrations. Regarding pharmaceuticals, currently there is little direct evidence that very low concentrations of these chemicals have a negative health effect on humans. However, from precautionary considerations, drinking water should be free from these compounds to remove the potential hazardous effects under long-term exposure. Since both EDCs and pharmaceuticals are generally recalcitrant chemicals, conventional water treatment methods are largely ineffective as a remediation technique. Only advanced oxidation processes (AOPs) that relies on highly oxidative OH? have been proved to be a useful technology for removing those compounds. Among various AOP options, the photo-Fenton process (UV/Fe¥²-citrate/H2O2) is highly economical and shows an excellent remediation performance. Thus, in this research, we plan to investigate the feasibility of photo-Fenton process as the control tool of EDCs and pharmaceuticals, and to improve the technique to be effective at circumneutral pH region. On the basis of health concern and environmental relevance, two target compounds were selected from each category: 17¥â-oestradiol, oestriol (EDCs) and diclofenac, carbamazepine (pharmaceuticals). Since the photo-Fenton process can be applied with open systems in which sunlight is used as UV source, it might be transferred as an effective remediation technique of polluted water to other developing countries in Southeast Asia and Africa. Our detailed objectives includes (i) investigate the effect of basic parameters ([Fe¥²], [H2O2], pH, UV wavelength, flow rate, light intensity, etc.) on the degradation of EDCs and pharmaceuticals by photo-Fenton reaction, (ii) improve photo-Fenton process by iron complexation and immobilization to increase the useful pH range up to circumneutral region, and (iii) manufacture a pilot-scale reactor system of photo-Fenton that can be practically utilized for purifying polluted effluents from industrial complexes. The results to be obtained in this research will be of great value in designing photo-Fenton treatment systems for removing not only EDCs and pharmaceuticals but also other various pollutants that might be encountered in industrial effluents.

Microorganisms are ubiquitous to both natural and industrial environments, so their adhesion to exposed surfaces is inevitable. The adhesion process is regarded to be governed by physical and/or chemical interactions between the microorganism and the surface (substratum). Though observed cellular behaviors depend not only on a single parameter, a lot of researches have been focused on the importance of hydrophobicity and hydrophilicity of surfaces. To our knowledge, however, a few systematic researches are available for the biocompatibility or rate of cell adhesion onto various surfaces having different hydrophobicities. In this study, we will considered random copolymers, poly(styrene-ran-sulfonic acid, PS-x-SA) which has similar structure with heparin, as a materials for surface modification. PS-x-SA with various degree of sulfonation were coated on the glass plates and placed on the well defined flow channel to evaluate the potential application of ionomers as the surface hydrophobicity modifier to control the adhesion of cells. The effect of hydrophobicity will be systematically investigated by parallel flow chamber with novel image analysis in various physicochemical conditions. Also, results will be compared to theoretical predictions based on a DLVO and/or XDLVO model which have