Professor Beate Escher

Position

Deputy Director, Entox

Contact Details

Phone: +61 (0)7 3274 9180 (direct)
             +61 (0)7 3274 9009 (reception)
Fax: +61 (0)7 3274 9003
Postal:
Entox
39 Kessels Road
Coopers Plains
QLD 4108
Australia
Email: b.escher@uq.edu.au

Biosketch

Beate Escher presently holds an ARC Future Fellowship and is a professor at the University of Queensland, adjunct professor in the Queensland Smart Water Research Faclility at Griffith University, lecturer at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) Zurich and senior adjunct researcher at the Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Sciences (Eawag).
She received her PhD in Environmental Chemistry from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zürich, ETHZ, Switzerland. In 2002 she completed her habilitation in Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zürich, ETHZ, Switzerland. She held a previous appointment as group leader at the Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science, Eawag, in Dübendorf, Switzerland and was lecturer at ETHZ.
Beate Escher is an environmental toxicologist with a keen interest to closing the gap between exposure and effect assessment through common approaches linking bioavailability to internal exposure and effects via understanding and modelling of toxicokinetic and toxicodynamic processes.
Beate Escher has been working on developing scientifically sound assessment tools and methodologies for predictive risk assessment of chemicals prior to their introduction into the environment and retrospective risk assessment of (mixtures of) micropollutants and their transformation products present in the waste water and the environment, which are critical for the protection of the environment and human health. Escher’s expertise includes mode-of-action based effect assessment, and methods for initial hazard screening of organic micropollutants including pharmaceuticals, environmental transformation products, and mixtures. More practically oriented aspects include passive sampling and effect-based methods for water quality assessment, covering a wide range from characterization of source water like wastewater or stormwater, over process water (biological treatment, advanced oxidation processes, filtration processes) to drinking water.
 

Key Objective:

To understand the causative processes leading to adverse effects by micropollutants, their mixtures and transformation products and to translate these findings into predictive models for hazard and risk assessment.

Current Research Projects

  • Bioanalytical tools for water quality assessment
  • Bioassays and risk communication
  • Monitoring (mixtures of) micropollutants during advanced water treatment with passive sampling and bioanalytical tools
  • Stormwater assessment: risk and health
  • Expanding the mode-of-action based modular test battery: adding novel endpoints and improve evaluation and reporting
  • Mixtures
  • Investigating the effect of mixtures of large number of organic pollutants at low exposure levels with the ultimate goal to proposed effect based water quality guidelines.
  • Evaluation of the mixture effects of organic micropollutants in marine wildlife
  • Fate of micropollutants in water recycling and water disinfection: influence of dissolved organic matter   
  • Development of in-vitro test systems for bioaccumulation and metabolism of very hydrophobic compounds. Passive dosing of persistent organic pollutants to improve in-vitro toxicity assays for very hydrophobic chemicals 
  • Risk assessment of transformation products
  • Risk assessment and mixture toxicity of micropollutants and their transformation products
  • Bioassay-directed fractionation of the transformation products of pharmaceuticals and biocides after advanced oxidation and photochemical treatment
  • Bioassays for volatile and semivolatile disinfection byproducts
  • Toxicokinetic and toxicodynamic models in aquatic toxicology for a mechanistic link between bioconcentration and effect

Research Staff

Research Student

 

Miscellaneous Links to Professional Activities:


Publications

Please access the following link:  http://www.researcherid.com/rid/C-7992-2009  to view Beate Escher's full list of publications.

Featured publications

Bioanalytical Tools in Water Quality Assessment
http://www.iwapublishing.com/template.cfm?name=isbn9781843393689
Author(s): Beate Escher and Frederic Leusch, with contributions by Heather Chapman and Anita Poulsen
IWA Publishing, ISBN: 9781843393689


Concepts

  • Escher, B.I. and Fenner, K. (2011). Recent advances in the environmental risk assessment of transformation products. Environmental Science & Technology,  45(9): 3835-3847.
  • Escher, B. I., Hermens, J. L. M. (2002), "Modes of action in ecotoxicology: their role in body burdens, species sensitivity, QSARs, and mixture effects", Environ. Sci. Technol., 36, 4201-4217.
  • Escher, B. I., Hermens, J. L. M. (2004), "Internal exposure– linking bioavailability to effect", Environ. Sci. Technol. 38, 455A-462A.
  • Schwarzenbach, R., Escher, B., Fenner, K., Hofstetter, T., Johnson, C., Von Gunten, U., Wehrli, B. (2006), "The challenge of micropollutants in aquatic systems", Science, 313, 1072-1077.
  • Escher, B., Schwarzenbach, R. P. (2002), "Mechanistic studies on baseline toxicity and uncoupling as a basis for modeling internal lethal concentrations in aquatic organisms", Aquat. Sci., 64, 20-35.


Water Quality Assessment

  • Macova, M., Toze, S., Hodgers, L., Mueller, J.F., Bartkow, M.E. and Escher, B.I. (2011). Bioanalytical tools for the evaluation of organic micropollutants during sewage treatment, water recycling and drinking water generation. Water Research, 45: 4238-4247.
  • Escher, B.I., Bramaz, N. and Ort, C. (2009) JEM Spotlight: Monitoring the treatment efficiency of a full scale ozonation on a sewage treatment plant with a mode-of-action based test battery. J. Env. Monitor. 11, 1836 - 1846.
  • Escher, B. I., Bramaz, N., Mueller, J. F., Quayle, P., Rutishauser, S. (2008), "Toxic equivalent concentrations (TEQs) for baseline toxicity and specific modes of action as a tool to improve evaluation of ecotoxicity tests on environmental samples", J. Env. Monitor., 10, 612-621.


Miscellaneous Research Topics

  • Altenburger, R., Scholz, S., Schmitt-Jansen, S., Busch, W., Escher, B. I., (2012), " Mixture toxicity revisited from a toxicogenomic perspective ", Environ. Sci. Technol., 46, 2508-2522.
  • Escher, B. I., Schwarzenbach, R. P., Westall, J. W. C. (2000), "Evaluation of liposome-water partitioning of organic acids and bases: I. Development of sorption model", Environ. Sci. Technol., 34, 3954-3961.
  • Escher, B. I., Snozzi, M., Häberli, K., Schwarzenbach, R. P. (1997), "A new method for simultaneous quantification of the uncoupling and inhibitory activity of organic pollutants in energy transducing membranes." Environ. Toxicol. Chem., 16, 405-414.
  • Kwon, J.-H., Escher, B. I. (2008), "A modified parallel artificial membrane permeability assay for evaluating bioconcentration of highly hydrophobic chemicals in fish", Environ. Sci. Technol., 42, 1787-1793.
  • Lee, Y.; Escher, B. I.; von Gunten, U., (2008), Efficient Removal of Estrogenic Activity during Oxidative Treatment of Waters Containing Steroid Estrogens, Environ. Sci. Technol. 42, 6333-6339.
  • Spycher, S., Smejtek, P., Netzeva, T. I., Escher, B. I. (2008), "Towards a class-independent quantitative structure-activity relationship model for uncouplers of oxidative phosphorylation", Chem. Res. Toxicol., 21, 911-927.
  • Neuwoehner, J., Fenner, K. and Escher, B.I. (2009) “Physiological Modes of Action of Fluoxetine and its Human Metabolites in Algae.” Environ. Sci. Technol. 43, 6830-6837.

 

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