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Paul Löffler

Paul Löffler

Research

I investigate the proliferation and transmission of antibiotic resistance resulting from transformation products (TPs) of antimicrobial chemicals in aquatic environments. Therefore, we use a variety of methods, such as in silico tools, molecular, and also analytical chemical methods to assess selected TPs. I test selected TPs products in different freshwater microcosms and try to establish and validate a robust analytical scheme for detecting and isolating the major products using LC-Orbitrap-MS. This method is further used to investigate the impact of antimicrobial transformation products on the aquatic resistome (expression of antibiotic resistance genes ARGs and mobile genetic elements MGEs using high throughput-qPCR) in different freshwater microcosms. Lastly, I aim to investigate spatial profiles of transformation products, parent compounds, ARGs, MGEs and microbial communities in freshwaters across (inter)national locations.

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Keywords: transformation products, antibiotic resistance, LC-MS/MS, HT-qPCR, recipient waters

Background

M. Sc. in Ecotoxicology at the University of Koblenz-Landau (Germany). Thesis title: "Quantitative screening for polyethylene, polypropylene and polypropylene debris in mulched agricultural soils using pyrolysis-gas chromatography/mass spectrometry"

B. Sc. in Chemistry at University of Stuttgart (Germany). Thesis title: "Synthesis of amino acid-based crosslinkers for hydrogels"

Supervision

Selected publications

Löffler, P., Lai, A., Henschel, H., Spilsbury, F., Deviller, G., Tarazona, J.V., Lai, F.Y. (2024) Enhanced Risk Assessment of Transformation Products through Chemical Similarity Analysis. Environ. Sci. & Technol. Water https://doi.org/10.1021/acsestwater.4c00240

Löffler, P., Escher, B.I., Baduel, C., Virta, M.P., Yin Lai, F. (2023) Antimicrobial Transformation Products in the Aquatic Environment: Global Occurrence, Ecotoxicological Risks, and Potential of Antibiotic Resistance. Environ. Sci. Technol. 57, 9474–9494. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.est.2c09854

Steinmetz, Z., Löffler, P., Eichhöfer, S., David, J., Muñoz, K., Schaumann, G.E. (2022) Are agricultural plastic covers a source of plastic debris in soil? A first screening study. SOIL, 8, 31–47. https://doi.org/10.5194/soil-8-31-2022

Löffler, P. (2021) Review: Vaccine Myth-Buster - Cleaning Up With Prejudice and Dangerous Misinformation. Front. Immunol. doi: 10.3389/fimmu.2021.663280

Haalck, I., Löffler, P., Baduel, C., Wiberg, K., Ahrens, L., Lai, F.Y. (2021) Mining chemical information in Swedish wastewaters for simultaneous assessment of population consumption, treatment efficiency and environmental discharge of illicit drugs. Sci. Rep. 11, 13510. doi: 10.1038/s41598-021-92915-4

Icik, E., Jolly, A., Löffler, P., Agelidis, N., Bugdayci, B., Altevogt, L., Bilitewski, U., Baro, A., Laschat, S. (2020) Synthesis and Biological Evaluation of a Library of AGE-Related Amino Acid Triazole Crosslinkers. E. J. Org. Chem. 33, 5368-5379. https://doi.org/10.1002/ejoc.202000811

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