18th International conference on Pollutant Responses in Marine Organisms (PRIMO 18): Trondheim Norway, 24-27, May 2015

Reasonable conservation and sustainable development strategies must recognize that species including - plants, animals, and microorganisms, with associated gene diversity in these species, different terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems are all part of a bio logically diverse planet Earth. Therefore, sustainable development within environmental carrying capacity and minimal human health risk consequences is a central issue in toxicological and environmental studies and research. Within the concept of environm ental carrying capacity and minimal human health risk, the evaluation and development risk assessment tools should happen simultaneously with new technologies. At the PRIMO 18 conference, we will convene a group of internationally recognized research scie ntists (both as invited and submitted lectures) to address research issues related to cellular absorption, distribution, metabolism and elimination, ocean acidification/Climate change, ecotoxicology of large marine vertebrates, emerging compounds/nanomate rials, endocrine disruption, geno- and phenotoxicity, tissue distribution and immune responses, combination effects of environmental stressors, detection and monitoring of biological effects of deliberately dumped chemicals at sea, ecosystem-level effects , computational toxicology, environmental assessment and biomarkers, Arctic pollution and pollution from Oil and gas installations. All these research and scientific issues are integral aspects of global approaches to emerging environmental problems.

The International Conference series, Pollutant Responses in Marine Organisms began in 1981 with a small group of NSF-funded investigators who were addressing questions related to Chemical Effects and the Health of the Ocean" at a mechanistic level. The fi rst PRIMO Symposium was held in Plymouth, UK, in 1981 with the goal of stimulating international scientific interactions in this area. The success of the first PRIMO meeting led to a second in 1983 in Woods Hole, USA, and then to biennial meetings held al ternately in Europe and the United States. Although the word "marine" was used to produce the memorable acronym, the meeting has never distinguished between, and always has included, marine and freshwater organisms. To date, PRIMO meetings have been held in the following locations worldwide (see below), translating to the outstanding scientific quality of this international forum. The PRIMO conference series has always been committed to disseminating scientific and research progress through the publicati on of special issues in two international journals, namely ? Aquatic Toxicology and Marine Environmental research. One of the primary goals of these journals is to promote scientific excellence through the publication of scientific studies in different ar eas of environmental sciences. Furthermore, the PRIMO conference series is committed to encouraging the participation and recruitment of young researchers into the field through the provision of travel grants that subsidizes their participation.