Anselm Irenäus Gordian SandbergPhD student
About me
I studied chemistry at the Georg-August-Universität in Göttingen, Germany, and at Stockholms Universitet, Sweden. I completed my studies in 2023 with master thesis on "Predicting LC/HRMS Retention Times Implementing Machine Learning for Chemicals Detected with Non-Target Screening in Wastewater". Since August 2023, I continue my research career in PhD studies in the group of Prof. Anneli Kruve, where my project focusses on improving the identification of hazardous chemicals in candidate structures obtained from mass spectra.
Research
Chemical pollution is one of the main causes for the rapidly shrinking biodiversity and having adverse effect on human health by e.g. allergenic sensitization and endocrine disruption. The sources of chemical pollution are numerous and the emitted chemicals have a wider range of properties. These contaminants currently remain, by and large, unidentified. Liquid Chromatography High Resolution Mass Spectrometry (LC/HRMS) is a state-of-the-art technique for separation (LC) and detection (HRMS) of thousands of chemicals; however, the interpretation of the HRMS spectra is still hampered. Especially challenging is to differentiate between isomeric candidate structures with the same mass-to-charge ratio. My research focuses on developing a machine learning workflow to improve the structural annotation in non-target screening based on retention time from LC.
Furthermore, this workflow will be used to identify hazardous chemicals in wastewater and their removal efficiency with engineered cellulose filters. This part of the project will be carried out in collaboration with Prof. Aji Mathew, an expert in cellulose filter design. Specifically, in parallel to the identification of the chemicals, I am going to estimate the toxicity and concentration of the chemicals in the wastewater before and after treatment. This information will be leveraged to reverse engineer the filter material for reducing the hazard of wastewater.
This research is funded by the Wallenberg Initiative Materials Science for Sustainability (WISE).
