The annual seminar of ANSO collaborative research project entitled "Monitoring and Risk Assessment of Toxic Chemicals in the Air (MORATOXA)" was successfully held both online and offline on November 4th, 2022. About twenty experts attended this seminar, including Prof. ZHANG Gan, Director of the State Key Laboratory of Organic Geochemistry and project leader, Prof. Ashan Habib from COMSATS University Islamabad in Pakistan, Prof. Michael Gatari from the University of Nairobi in Kenya, Dr. Jabir Syed from COMSATS University Islamabad in Pakistan, Dr. Bong Chui Wei from Universiti Malaya in Malaysia, Dr. Parakrama Karunaratne from the University of Peradeniya in Sri Lanka. This seminar was chaired by the project secretary, Dr. ZHAO Shizhen.
Prof. ZHANG Gan extended a warm welcome to all participants. He introduced recent progress and remarkable achievements of Institute regarding the cooperation with countries along the "21st Century Maritime Silk Road" in recent years, with the support from ANSO and other international organizations. He also summarized the concept of MORATOXA project and affirmed the great significance of the project in promoting technology exchanges and cooperation, talent training, and promoting a "non-toxic" society. Dr. ZHAO Shizhen presented the research background, implementation plan and progress that has been made on the project. Despite being affected by COVID-19, the Chinese team and its collaborators have completed the deployment of the sampling campaign, and jointly published four SCI papers in popular journals. Furthermore, participating experts had an in-depth discussion of the scientific rationality of the overseas cooperative sampling scheme and put forward valuable suggestions on its feasibility according to local conditions.
Based on the "21st Century Maritime Silk Road" environmental and health cooperation network laid out by the Guangzhou Institute of Geochemistry of CAS, the MORATOXA project is dedicated to the ‘Green Silk Road’ consensus of the Belt & Road Initiative (BRI). MORATOXA project focus on air toxics and human health, taking the monitoring, risk assessment and control measures of air toxics as the main research contents, and carrying out multilateral international cooperation research in typical cities in different regions or countries.
The program is hosted and technically supported by Guangzhou Institute of Geochemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences (GIGCAS), with the following six key partners, including COMSATS University Islamabad in Pakistan, University of Nairobi in Kenya, Universiti Malaya in Malaysia, University of Peradeniya in Sri Lanka, University of Dhaka in Bangladesh, and Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) in Ghana. The project is open to more collaborators worldwide.
Dr. Shizhen Zhao presented the project background and recent progress
Group photo of participants
Source: Dr. ZHAO Shizhen, Guangzhou Institute of Geochemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences (GIGCAS)
No.16 Lincui Road, Chaoyang District, Beijing, China
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anso-public@anso.org.cn
