Carsten Prasse joined the Dept. of Environmental Health and Engineering at Johns Hopkins as an assistant professor in February. Prasse’s research focuses on the fate of organic chemicals in the urban water cycle and the assessment of their impacts on environmental and human health. His research group applies high-resolution mass spectrometry for the identification of the chemical structures of transformation products that are formed during degradation of organic chemicals in engineered treatment systems and the environment. To understand the risk these transformed chemicals pose, Prasse investigates their reaction with biomolecules including proteins and DNA.

In his previous work, Prasse showed that antiviral drugs, a class of pharmaceuticals used for treatment of HIV, hepatitis and herpes, can be widely detected in rivers both in Europe and the US. While several of these compounds are effectively eliminated in wastewater treatment, their degradation often results in the formation of stable transformation products which can, in some cases, even be detected in finished drinking water. In addition, Prasse found that transformation products can be more toxic than the original compounds, highlighting the importance of including transformation products in the risk assessment of chemicals. The Prasse lab aims to develop new methodologies that allow researchers to identify and prioritize chemicals based on their risks to both the environment and human health. This information can then be used to optimize water treatment technologies and thus minimize the emission of these chemicals into our waters.