Presented by Dr. Jose Julio Ortega
In a world facing global change, the strategic value of soil cannot be underestimated. The extensive costs associated with remediating polluted sites, compounded by the need for financial recovery from the COVID pandemic and Ukraine war, demand innovative site 
remediation solutions. Our solutions prioritize sustainability principles, aligning with the UN Sustainable Development Goals and the European Green Deal. Nature-based solutions (NBS), such as bioremediation and phytoremediation, offer promising avenues for soil restoration. Traditional NBS approaches focused solely on total pollutant removals have proven unpredictable and often fall short of legislative remediation goals.
Our seminar will explore the paradigm shift towards addressing bioavailability reductions, going beyond total pollutant removals. At IRNAS-CSIC, we have made significant strides in clarifying bioavailability concepts and methods, offering standardized options for application. Our nature-based engineering components enhance bioremediation performance and risk reduction across multiple levels of bioavailability processes, including contaminant/soil interactions, transport, and biological processing.
Join us as we discuss our groundbreaking research on hydrophobic organic pollutants and bioremediation. Discover how targeting slow-desorption pollutant fractions with (bio)surfactants, modulating microbial degrader deposition and motility, co-mobilizing non-motile inoculants, and trapping pollutants with plant-biochar arrangements can revolutionize soil remediation. The seminar will also explore how solving bioavailability issues contributes to European initiatives like the Green Deal, empowering the soil health and food mission, the action plan for zero pollution, and the chemicals strategy for sustainability.
Don't miss this opportunity to be part of the soil remediation revolution! Join us on August 8th to learn from leading experts and shape a more sustainable future.
J. J. Ortega-Calvo
Dr. José-Julio Ortega-Calvo (ORCID: 0000-0003-1672-5199), is senior researcher at Institute of Natural Resources and Agrobiology of Seville, Spanish National Research Council (IRNAS-CSIC), and leader of the research group “Bioremediation and Bioavailability”.
Dr. Ortega-Calvo has experience in microbiology and environmental chemistry, working on bioavailability science and biodegradation of organic pollutants since the last 25 years. After obtaining his Ph.D. in 1991 at University of Seville, he worked on different aspects of microbial ecology during postdoctoral stays in Amsterdam University (The Netherlands) and Cornell University (USA), and obtained his permanent position as tenured scientist at IRNAS in 1996. He has worked as a visiting researcher in the Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology (EAWAG) in Dübendorf, Swizerland (1997), in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA (2003), and in the University of Oxford, UK (2009 and 2012). In 2009, Dr. Ortega promoted to Senior Researcher at CSIC. He has also wide experience in leading national and international research projects, having lead 20 projects (total cost 3 million euro) since 1997, and he is associate to the University of Seville in the PhD programmes “Integrated Biology” and “Natural Resources and Environment”.
Dr. Ortega-Calvo was, in 2016/2017, the president in Europe of the Society for Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (SETAC Europe), and from June 2017 to June 2023, a member of the Stakeholder Bureau from EFSA (European Food Safety Authority), representing academic stakeholders. Since November 2017, he is a member of the External Science Advisory Panel (ESAP) at Long Range Research Initiative of the European Chemical Industry Council (CEFIC-LRI). J.J. Ortega is Associate Editor of the journal Science of the Total Environment (Elsevier, Q1, environmental sciences -JCR), since May 2018, and Critical Reviews in Environmental Science and Technology (Taylor & Francis, Q1, environmental sciences, JCR), since August 2022.