Diana Aga
Diana Aga, Research professor in Environmental Analytical Chemistry and Mass Spectrometry, State University of New York at Buffalo, USA
“Now you see me, now you don’t: Revealing new chemical forms through high resolution mass spectrometry and complementary techniques” (2021) and: “Pharmaceutical monitoring paired with RNA detection in wastewater for early-warning of community viral outbreaks” (2022)
Event: 17th and 18th Annual Workshops on Emerging High-Resolution Mass Spectrometry
and LC-MS/MS Applications in Environmental Analysis and Food Safety. Ottawa, Canada.
Partner Organisation: Catalan Institute for Water Research (ICRA)
Date: 14-15 October 2021, 10-11 October 2022
Diana S. Aga is the Henry M. Woodburn Chair Professor at the State University of New York at Buffalo. She has extensively studied the presence of contaminants in ground and wastewater. Aga has worked to characterise and remove antibiotics from wastewater to prevent the spread of antibiotic resistance and the multiplication of superbugs. She has also studied the chemical composition of brominated flame retardants (polybrominated diphenyl ethers, BDEs), toxic chemicals which can cause brain damage, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and damage to the thyroid. These BDEs are washed into the public water supply, accumulating in the food chain and eventually reaching humans through meat and fish. She has shown that enzymes in the human body can break these BDEs down into a more dangerous hydoxylated form.
