Vayanga Rathnayake (PhD Student)
University of South Australia

Project Title
Development and validation of a mechanistic model to predict the bioavailability of heavy metals to the microorgnisms in the soil environment.

Biography
Vayanga persued B.Sc. special degree in Microbiology at the University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka and obtained a First class (Hons) in 1998, she was also was awarded 02 gold medals for the best performance. Her undergraduate research was on petroleum microbiology.

After graduation Vayanga worked at the Industrial Technology Institute, Colombo, Sri Lanka as a research officer. She obtained my M.Sc. in Environmental Enginering from the National University of Singapore in 2003, with a research component on Bioaerosols. In 2004 Vayanga switched to her profession of interest, teaching, and working as a lecturer in the Department of Microbiology , University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka.

Start Date
February 2006

Project Details
It is important to be aware of the possible effects of increasing levels of heavy metals in the environment.  As a means to measure these contaminants, it is necessary to develop sensitive and effective methods, which are inexpensive, to monitor and determine the level of toxicity of the heavy metals.

In recent times it has been demonstrated that heavy metal toxicity is not always related to the total heavy metal concentration measured with various analytical methods.  Consequently, an approach is needed to focus on how to determine the actual bioavailable concentration of the heavy metals in the soil environment.

This project aims to develop a tool to predict the heavy metal bioavailability in the soil environment.