Prof. Charles Holmes from department of biochemistry, Alberta University, Canada, visited State Key Laboratory of Environmental Chemistry and Ecotoxicology, on May 18, 2011. Dr. Charles Holmes has been engaged in the toxicity of cyanobacterial toxins. As the speaker of environmental chemistry frontier BBS, he gave a speech on chemistry and biology of microcystin blue-green algae toxins.

Cyanobacteria perched in surface water all over the world. Owning to cyanobacterial toxins, excessive growth of cyanobacteria can cause serious water quality deterioration. These cyanobacterial toxin generally includes a series of toxins. Microcystins is one of the toxins and is closely related to worldwide deaths caused by cyanobacteria bloom. However, the relevant molecular mechanism study is extremely limited.

Dr. Charles Holmes discussed the interaction between microcystins and phosphatase, revealed its liver toxicity and the molecular mechanism and developed new technology and method monitoring the microcystins in drinking water using the discovery in molecular mechanisms research.