Objective
Environmental assessment of chemical contaminants still relies largely on concentration measurements, while biological effect methods remain underused, being viewed as less precise or harder to interpret. Yet such methods are essential for detecting mixture effects and showing when exposure translates into ecological risk under real-world conditions. DNA adductomics offers a way forward: by profiling modifications of nucleic acids in wildlife, it produces molecular fingerprints that often reveal contaminant sources and toxic mechanisms, capturing both exposure and its biological consequences.
To give these fingerprints ecological meaning, they must be anchored in a sentinel species with well-established health endpoints. Amphipods provide this anchor, as their reproductive disorders are sensitive indicators of developmental toxicity from sediment contamination and are already applied in the Baltic monitoring programmes. Building on this foundation, GENHANCE will develop a Genome Health Indicator (GHI) that connects adductome fingerprints with reproductive disorders as organism-level outcomes in amphipods.
GENHANCE integrates field evidence from amphipod samples from the long-term Baltic monitoring with controlled bioassays and mesocosm experiments to identify diagnostic adductome signatures, establish thresholds that separate background variation from contaminant-induced injury, and develop a multimetric GHI. Embedding this indicator into weight-of-evidence frameworks with chemical and organism-level data will advance biological effect methods from descriptive to predictive tools.
Secondments at HELCOM and the Estonian Environment Agency will ensure regulatory uptake, testing GHIs in regional assessments and national monitoring. GENHANCE thus advances mechanistic ecotoxicology at the basic science level while delivering decision-ready tools that strengthen Europe’s leadership in exposomics, risk forecasting, MSFD implementation, and One Health protection.
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 public health
- natural sciences biological sciences genetics genomes
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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.1.2 - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA)
MAIN PROGRAMME
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Topic(s)
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.
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-TMA-MSCA-PF-EF - HORIZON TMA MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
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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) HORIZON-MSCA-2025-PF
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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.
10691 Stockholm
Sweden
The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.