Dr. Nelson O'Driscoll is an Earth and Environmental Science professor and director of the Mercury Lab. An environmental scientist, O’Driscoll is acquiring a cutting-edge freeze dryer system to support his groundbreaking research on mercury pollution. The installation of a LabConco Free Zone Freeze Dryer at Acadia University's K.C. Irving Environmental Science Center will significantly enhance the efficiency and accuracy of mercury and other contaminant analyses.

Mercury, a hazardous neurotoxicant that accumulates in food chains, poses a growing threat to both ecosystems and health worldwide. O'Driscoll's research focuses on mercury speciation and bioaccumulation, which involves studying the various forms and movement of mercury in ecosystems across the globe.

In 2022, O’Driscoll was awarded the Gulf of Maine Visionary Award, by the Gulf of Maine Council on the Marine Environment, which is a partnership of Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Maine, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia. The award recognizes innovation, creativity, and commitment to protecting the marine environment.

The acquisition of this new freeze dryer is crucial for O'Driscoll's research, as it enables his group to properly prepare samples of organisms from lower trophic levels to analyze mercury at extremely low concentrations. With this advanced equipment, O'Driscoll's research on mercury movements and bioaccumulation in food chains will explore new questions that previously were not possible to answer.

Not only will this acquisition benefit more than ten research students annually over the next five years, but it will also foster collaborations and joint training programs with international colleagues and institutions. This cutting-edge freeze dryer will ultimately contribute to policy development efforts aimed at safeguarding human and ecosystem health from the detrimental effects of mercury pollution.

“Despite increased regulation, global emissions of Mercury (Hg) are increasing, and Hg will continue to affect organisms in sensitive ecosystems worldwide. My research program has international importance as it focuses on the primary factors controlling mercury accumulation in ecosystems,” says O’Driscoll. “This work is critical to the health of all Canadians, with direct impacts to populations that rely on these ecosystems. This new equipment in the Mercury Lab will be key to the training of the next generation of environmental science researchers at Acadia.”

He will receive a one-time Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) award of $103,879 as part of the Research Tools and Instruments fund.