Project description
Uncovering the hidden effects of everyday chemicals
Industrial chemicals are everywhere. While their high-dose toxicity is mostly known, the effects of everyday exposure remain unclear. The ERC-funded POLIS project aims to study Perfluoroalkyl and Polyfluoroalkyl substances, which are human-made ‘forever chemicals’ widely used in furniture, wall paints, mobile phone screens, carpets and shampoo. The project will focus on low-level everyday exposures. Using advanced single-cell omics techniques, it will examine how these chemicals affect the immune system and its capacity to respond to a challenge. By integrating experimental and computational methods, POLIS seeks to reveal hidden bioactivities, advance chemical safety evaluation and inform strategies to mitigate the health impacts of persistent environmental chemicals.
Objective
There is growing evidence that currently used toxicological assessments of chemicals fail to fully capture their actual biological activity. While chemicals are routinely tested for acute toxic effects, often at high concentrations, potential function-modulating effects at low concentrations are often underexplored. The inclusion of up-to-date high-resolution methods in the toxicological screening praxis would allow instead to fully capture the complex bioactivity profile of these compounds, which depends on numerous aspects including bioavailability, route of exposure and individual susceptibility. While the last 100 years have seen an enormous number of chemicals introduced into our daily life, of which a large number are well-known to persist in the environment, a sufficient understanding of their bioactivity potential is lacking. Also based on growing evidence, it is not far-fetched to hypothesize that some of these industrial chemicals could be partly responsible for the constant increase of non-communicable diseases including autoimmune diseases, chronic inflammatory diseases but also cancer or (neuro)degenerative diseases. Perfluoroalkyl and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances (PFAS) are a class of xenobiotics with proven strong toxicity at high-level exposure, while little is known about their bioactivity at concentrations commonly detected in human samples. Considering their high stability and ubiquitous occurrence in the environment and human body, exposure to PFAS has reached a pandemic scale. I postulate that it is of outmost importance to finally dissect the potential of these compounds to molecularly interfere with organ functionalities at the single-cell level using state-of-the-art high-resolution omics technologies. Supported by an interdisciplinary training in pharmacology, systems immunology, omics, animal and cellular models, and bioinformatics, I represent a prime candidate to successfully develop this project and clarify the bioactivity of PFAS.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
- medical and health sciences health sciences inflammatory diseases
- medical and health sciences basic medicine immunology
- medical and health sciences clinical medicine oncology
- natural sciences earth and related environmental sciences environmental sciences pollution
- medical and health sciences basic medicine pharmacology and pharmacy
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Keywords
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC)
MAIN PROGRAMME
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Topic(s)
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Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Funding Scheme
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
HORIZON-ERC - HORIZON ERC Grants
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Call for proposal
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
(opens in new window) ERC-2024-STG
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Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.
53127 Bonn
Germany
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