Toxicity of Aquatic System and Remediation: The Contemporary Issues (Confluence of Research in Biotechnology for Human Welfare)

The eco-friendly remediation technologies for the degraded environment are indeed the “need of the hour”. Even though the regulatory mechanisms are in place to control the discharge of untreated contaminants into the natural environment, still, we could see a different picture; hence, remediation and restoration of the environment becomes an ardent requisite. The present-day fast pace of industrialization without proper disposal planning is impacting the water bodies adversely, generating the need for green management technologies. It is worth mentioning that these environment-friendly technologies are most cost-effective as well. The advancements in biotechnology have paved the way to mitigate the problem.

The primary audience of this book are the students and researchers who are working in the field of toxicology and bioremediation of aquatic environments. We have primarily focused in this book on bioremediation of aquatic system toxicity, considering this as an environment-friendly system and having the least adverse effects. Hence this book aims to bring forward together on a single platform the latest research in aquatic resource management, which includes the discussions and discourses on the degradation and the effect and the remediation.

This book includes a discussion on the different sources of contamination from industries or by the usage of commercial pesticides or even fertilizers. These contaminants, if discharged in their toxic form as effluent, cause harm to the aquatic systems and the subsoil and create the possibility of groundwater contamination. This book includes a discussion on the different routes of contamination and the food-chain transport possibilities of pesticide pollutants, which are very contemporary and required topics of research. It also includes relevant discussions on how to get rid of the toxicity.

Susmita Mukherjee, Professor and Head of the Department, Biotechnology, University of Engineering & Management, Kolkata. She has done B. Sc. & M. Sc. from University of Kalyani, India and PhD from Indian Institute of Engineering Science & Technology, Shibpur, India. Her research interest is on ecotoxicology and environmental remediation. She has worked on the East Kolkata Wetlands, the Ramsar site in West €bengal. Her major work is on arsenic remediation. She has more than fifteen years of teaching experience. Supervised projects as PI. She is Associate Editor of the journal, Applied Biochemistry and Biotechnology, Springer-Nature, Managing Editor of American Journal of Bio-Technology Research, SMART Society, USA. She has acted as guest editor in journals by Springer-Nature, ELSEVIER, Taylor and Frances and edited books published by these publication houses. She has published may research papers in journals of international repute and two patents published.

Dr. Sanket Joshi is a Professor and Deputy Director at Amity Institute of Microbial Technology, Amity University Rajasthan, Jaipur, India. He served as Deputy Director, Oil & Gas Research Center, and an Application Specialist, at Sultan Qaboos University, Oman, from 2013–2023. He holds BSc and MSc degrees from Sardar Patel University, India, and a PhD degree from M. S. University of Baroda, India–all in Microbiology. Prof. Joshi has 18 years of academic teaching and research experience, and 4 years of industrial R&D experience, in India and Oman. His current research interests encompass: Energy, Microbial products, and Environmental bioremediation. He has 193 scientific publications as papers in international journals (92), book chapters (23), conference proceedings (67), international books (10), and one Australian Innovation Patent to his credit. Prof. Joshi serves as an Academic/Associate/Guest Editor for some of the highly reputed journals. He is book series editor of ‘Advances in Biotechnology and Bioengineering', Elsevier INC. He was awarded the “NRI Senior Scientist Award”, from Microbiologists Society, India, during the academic year, 2019–2020. He has 4273 citations, h-index of 31, and i10 index of 60 (Google Scholar), and was listed among the 2% of the "Stanford University–Elsevier” list of highly cited scientists in the world-2022 and 2023, for excellence in scientific research in ‘Energy’ and ‘Biotechnology’ disciplines.

Dr. Sonali Paul is currently Professor, Department of Biotechnology, University of Engineering and Management, Kolkata. Having completed her graduate studies from Presidency College and Masters from University of Calcutta, she completed her doctoral degree from Department of Biochemistry, University of Calcutta. Her present research interests include Environmental Toxicology, Environmental Biochemistry. She has published a number of papers in indexed journals of national and international repute. She has 2 published patents to her credit. She has supervised several projects as a joint supervisor which deals with understanding heavy metal toxicity effects on agricultural as well as medicinal plants and devising methods for remediation. She is serving as an Assistant Editor of International journals and is a member of varied scientific societies.

Prof. Rita Kundu is presently serving as Head and Professor, Department of Botany, University of Calcutta, works in the field of Cell Biology. Her research interest is to study and explore the potential of underutilized/unexplored natural /synthetic organic or inorganic compounds to regulate cell proliferation by inducing cell death either through apoptosis /autophagy /any other way, in cervical cancer cells in vitro. At the same time, she is also interested in identifying the bioactive compounds and their mode of action in regulating cell proliferation. She is also working on cadmium accumulation and it’s amelioration in rice grains. She also works on engineered nanocomposite mediated nutrient delivery and growth enhancement in rice plants to protect soil health due to overuse of fertilizers.  She has received financial assistance from UGC, ICMR, WBDBT, WBDST and UGC-UPEII for her research activities. She has published her findings in reputed journals. Till date eight students have submitted their work and eight students are working for the Doctoral degree.