Cheryl Wiramanaden
Ph. D. student

M.Chem, with honours in Environmental Chemistry, The University of Edinburgh, Scotland, 1999

cherylw
@chem.ubc.ca

Office: NCE 342

Advisor: Kristin Orians

My work looks at speciation: the different chemical forms of an element. This is important because the chemical form of the element dictates the mobility and uptake of the element by an organism. I am looking at the speciation of copper in the ocean.

The marine chemistry of copper is of interest particularly because its speciation is strongly linked with biological processes. Organisms can suffer from copper toxicity in some areas of the ocean, even when copper is at nanomolar concentrations which are natural for the open ocean. Some cyanobacteria and phytoplankton produce strong copper binding ligands in response to copper stress, rendering copper no longer available for uptake by the organism.

The binding strength and concentration of these ligands have been determined both in the open ocean and in lab cultures, however little work has been done to isolate and identify the ligands. This knowledge would also be of interest on chemical basis as these ligands bind more strongly than current synthetic ligands.

last updated October 29, 2004