Ecotoxicology of altered fractal organization in cells |Biomedgrid

The continuous release of existing and new/exotic chemicals in the biosphere raises concerns for the sustainability of ecosystems. Ecotoxicology is broadly defined as the study of impacts of environmental contaminants to ecosystems (population and community) and organisms. This discipline is relatively new and is confronted to the daunting task of the understanding of toxicity of chemicals and their mixtures in various species of the food chain from bacteria, yeast, cyano/bacteria, algae, the diverse group of invertebrates (worms, micro crustacean, mollusks) and vertebrates. The continuous progression of our technology contributes to the production of new and exotic chemicals that could find their way in various ecosystems with unknown long-term impacts. It is estimated that 84 000 chemicals exist although not all of them are actually marketed (National Academy of Science, 2014).