The Environmental Impact of Drugs Reviewed: Klaus Kümmerer speaks at CleanMed Europe Leading Environmental Chemistry researcher Dr. Klaus Kümmerer gives a speech at CleanMed Europe on May 31. Klaus Kümmerer will give an overview of the pharmaceuticals that are present in European soils and water, together with their environmental impact and the current research within the field. Prof. Kümmerer might well possess the most complete picture of pharmaceuticals in the European environment that science knows. Pharmaceutical substances are often persistent and may be harmful to the environment. Since they usually are artificial, and made with the explicit aim of exerting a biological effect, the task of achieving a non-toxic environment needs to take drugs into account. Initiated by among other the discovery of sex change among fish due to environmental estrogens, the study of the environmental impact of pharmaceuticals has emerged as a fast-growing, albeit new, field of research. To present date, a large number of different drugs have been found in European soils and waters. Prof. Klaus Kümmerer will account for the current situation, for the sources, fate and impact of the pharmaceuticals in the environment. Klaus Kümmerer is Professor of Environmental Chemistry and Environmental Hygiene at the University of Freiburg, Germany. He received his doctorate from the University of Tübingen in 1990, and already during his undergraduate days he was dedicated to environmental research. Since 1995, he has been researching on input, occurrence, fate and effects of pharmaceuticals in the aquatic environment, and he has become one of the leading researchers in the field. After more than 150 mostly peer reviewed publications, books and book contributions, Prof. Kümmerer should be viewed as a European authority in the field of ecotoxicology of pharmaceuticals. He is also the editor of an extensive book on the topic: "Pharmaceuticals in the Environment. Sources, Fate, Effects and Risks", originally published in 2001 and with a second edition published in 2005. Furthermore, he is member of several national and international scientific boards and of a number of journals' editorial boards. Prof. Kümmerer has more than one research interest. He has been working on-and published papers within-numerous fields of science. Apart from drug ecotoxicology, these include analytical chemistry, pollution analysis, life cycle assessments, environmental management and auditing for hospitals, sustainable chemistry, and time and ecology.