Table of Contents
ABSTRACT
In the last decade, advances in analytical chemistry have made possible the detection of very low concentrations of chemicals in environmental samples thus detecting the presence of an ever-increasing number of pharmaceutical compounds. This causes serious concern due to the potential adverse effects of such compounds on the ecosystem and human health. The existing technologies to treat wastewater are either inefficient or costly for the treatment of pharmaceutical compounds which has impelled the search for new technological approaches. In this sense, fungal laccases have attracted recent interest due to both their broad substrate specificity and their simple catalysis requirements. This chapter reviews the latest published literature dealing with the removal of pharmaceutical compounds by laccase-producing fungi or their laccases.
