Dr. Mayumi Seto, the Centre for Marine Environmental Studies (CMES), Ehime University, has won the “Best Poster Award” in the “Interdisciplinary Symposium on Environmental Sciences: To Establish an Asian Network of Environmental Researchers (ANER)” which was held during 11 – 13 November 2008 at Ehime University, Ehime, Japan. This symposium was hosted by Ehime University Global COE Program financially supported by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sprots, Science and Technology, Government of Japan and the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS). The symposium included 5 keynote lectures, 29 oral presentations and 55 poster presentations and was attended by about 130 participants. The aim of this symposium is to establish an ANER, consisting mainly the alumni of Ehime University and some other leading scientists from the Asian countries.

She presented a talk on her and co-worker’s research outcome entitled “Puzzling Out the Non-linearity in the Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs)-Phytoplankton Bioconcentation Processes”, dealing with a modelling of POPs accumulation process by phytoplankton. First order differential equation models were used to examine previously reported hypotheses for non-linear relationship of bioconcentration factor and octanol-water coefficient. They concluded that observational data sets, for 4 phytoplankton species, were most consistent with the model that incorporates the presence of dissolved organic carbon and steric hindrance of cell membrane.

The concept of the Global COE Program of Ehime University, “Interdisciplinary Studies on Environmental Chemistry”, is to create an outstanding centre for promoting advanced interdisciplinary researches, especially on Asian region, in environmental chemistry. The laboratories of the CMES have been training young researchers particularly from the Asian developing counties and performing various profound studies on wide ranging disciplines of environmental chemistry in collaboration with highly talented senior scientists and young researchers. As a part of the COE program, the Interdisciplinary Symposium aimed to promote various research activities in the Asian region, which is now experiencing increasing environmental problems and also well recognized as a significant global source for pollution of heavy metals and persistent organic pollutants (POPs). This symposium gave opportunity to rebuild networks among researchers who are active in Asian countries, which should encourage them to expand interdisciplinary collaboration researches.