Title: «Living on medicines: Study of the potential impact of pharmaceutical compounds on marine aquatic environments and their biota in Albania»;

Reference: No. 908/1 Prot., dated 31.07.2023;

Duration: 24 months;

Purpose of the project is to offer an integrated chemical and biological approach to study and understand the possible impacts of pharmaceutical pollution in freshwater and marine ecosystems in Albania, with the aim of creating a simple set of biomarkers for rapid, reliable and at low cost, of the toxicity of pharmaceuticals in model organisms.

Main objectives are:

• The study of interactions of pharmaceutical substances present in the environment with living organisms, in different scenarios of global warming (temperature change);
• Developing a “battery"valuable biochemical, physiological, morphological and genetic biomarkers for evaluating the possible negative effects of some selected medications, in marine and freshwater biota, in different temperature regimes;
• Investigation of the toxic mechanisms of pharmaceutical substances found in the environment, in model organisms such as fish, molluscs, focusing on sub-lethal and chronic effects;
• Development and testing of techniques vitro to assess cytotoxicity and physiological changes through techniques vitro/in situ and model these changes using bioinformatics and machine learning (in silico);
• Dissemination of research findings to young researchers through the organization of workshop-ve and short trainings where practical knowledge is transferred, and the publication of the most important findings in a scientific report and/or scientific article published in an indexed journal.

Coordinator: Faculty of Natural Sciences

Program: Bilateral Research, Technical and Scientific, between Albania and Italy 2023-2024, AKKSHI