Periodic Reporting for period 3 - R-Exposome Chair (R-Exposome Chair: Unlocking the potential of RECETOX in Exposome research)
Periodo di rendicontazione: 2022-10-01 al 2025-03-31
The project's main goal was to develop new capacities for Environmental Health research in CEE, namely at Masaryk University in Brno, Czech Republic (CR), by establishing the excellent international scientist as a leader of new research programme of Environmental Epidemiology, Biostatistics and/or Bioinformatics and the specific research group of Environmental Epidemiology.
The ERA Chair research group became the integral part of RECETOX in developing both the internal and external collaborations including with the RECETOX research infrastructure. The Strategic Research Agenda of the new research group was developed based on the needs of the RECETOX Centre, matching the professional and scientific profiles of ERA Chairs. The Strategic Research Agenda can be divided into the following broad themes: (i) COVID-19 related work, (ii) Child Health, (iii) Cardio-metabolic conditions, respiratory health, ageing and mortality. The ERA Chair group members significantly contributed to the development of new study programmes at all levels of university education.
Such a new research and education capacity supports the development of innovative approaches for an assessment of the potential causal associations between various exposures over a lifetime and the health effects to improve our understanding of the mechanisms of these associations.
The main objectives of the project were to recruit internationally recognized scientist and the transformational leader, establish and sustain the ERA Chair’s research group, contribute to transformation of the research, innovation, and study environment having an impact on the MU competitiveness, to improve of the international visibility and to increase volume of the research funding from the international and private resources and ensure the long-term sustainability of the established research programme.
The ERA Chair’s team was expected to exploit and enhance the value of existing data resources including longitudinal data on outdoor and indoor pollution and contamination of consumer products and food chains available in the in-house databases, regional data on pollution sources, emission inventories, traffic, air quality, type of housing, socioeconomic status and behaviour of the local population, longitudinal data from the regional ELSPAC/CELSPAC cohorts, rich toxicological data resources, and high-quality data from the national health registers.
Given the composition of the ERA Chair team and of the broader research programme of Environmental Health, the project enabled to open new research avenues of RECETOX.
The ERA Chair research group became the integral part of RECETOX in developing both the internal and external collaborations including with the RECETOX research infrastructure. The Strategic Research Agenda of the new research group was developed based on the needs of the RECETOX Centre, matching the professional and scientific profiles of ERA Chairs. The Strategic Research Agenda can be divided into the following broad themes: (i) COVID-19 related work, (ii) Child Health, (iii) Cardio-metabolic conditions, respiratory health, ageing and mortality. The ERA Chair group members significantly contributed to the development of new study programmes at all levels of university education.
Such a new research and education capacity supports the development of innovative approaches for an assessment of the potential causal associations between various exposures over a lifetime and the health effects to improve our understanding of the mechanisms of these associations.
The main objectives of the project were to recruit internationally recognized scientist and the transformational leader, establish and sustain the ERA Chair’s research group, contribute to transformation of the research, innovation, and study environment having an impact on the MU competitiveness, to improve of the international visibility and to increase volume of the research funding from the international and private resources and ensure the long-term sustainability of the established research programme.
The ERA Chair’s team was expected to exploit and enhance the value of existing data resources including longitudinal data on outdoor and indoor pollution and contamination of consumer products and food chains available in the in-house databases, regional data on pollution sources, emission inventories, traffic, air quality, type of housing, socioeconomic status and behaviour of the local population, longitudinal data from the regional ELSPAC/CELSPAC cohorts, rich toxicological data resources, and high-quality data from the national health registers.
Given the composition of the ERA Chair team and of the broader research programme of Environmental Health, the project enabled to open new research avenues of RECETOX.
In RP1, major efforts have been put into ERA Chair’s selection. The hiring process was realized according to international standards of recruitment of senior scientific leaders and with respect to The Code of Conduct for the Recruitment of Researchers.
The ERA Chair became the leader of the research programe Environmental Health and the head of the research group Environmental Epidemiology, in which we started to hire new members. The process was supported by HR department and the ERA Chair personally guaranteed the definition of positions to be hired and participated on the hiring process. So far, almost ten researchers were hired into the team, mostly at the level of the postdocs and PhD students.
The members of the ERA Chair team participated on teaching and development of relevant courses for RECETOX students and have already participated on the development of various research grants, both national and international. The ERA Chair team has contributed to new partnerships and actions, such as the participation of RECETOX on the realization of already running HAPIEE cohort.
In the second and third reporting period, the research group has been stabilized and lot of efforts has been put into the development of internal and external research cooperations. Internally, the cooperation run smoothly especially in the Research programme of Environmental Health and also with the research infrastructure of Population studies, which highly benefits from the presence of ERA Chairs research group. The external cooperation has been developed both nationally and internationally. Nationally, there is close cooperation with the Masaryk Memorial Cancer Institute, Institute of Health Information and Statistics of the Czech Republic, Charles University, National Institute of Public Health and many others. Internationally, the cooperation is being developed within joint research projects, e.g. with Utrecht University, IS Global in Spain, UCL, and many others.
All the project objectives have been fulfilled:
- The ERA Chair and the team members were hired
- The ERA Chair group has been established, became operational and reached sustainability through participation in RECETOX environment, internal and external collaborations and their success in competitive research funding,
- The ERA Chairs contributed to many research projects – development and implementation and introduced important partnerships and collaborations both thanks to their previous experiences and professional links, but also thanks to developed expertise at RECETOX,
- Contributed to the visibility of both RECETOX and the actual research and educational topic of environmental health and environmental epidemiology, which was for long time underrepresented and not well developed in the whole region,
- Contributed to increase of international and national research funding and to the development of new study programmes.
The ERA Chair became the leader of the research programe Environmental Health and the head of the research group Environmental Epidemiology, in which we started to hire new members. The process was supported by HR department and the ERA Chair personally guaranteed the definition of positions to be hired and participated on the hiring process. So far, almost ten researchers were hired into the team, mostly at the level of the postdocs and PhD students.
The members of the ERA Chair team participated on teaching and development of relevant courses for RECETOX students and have already participated on the development of various research grants, both national and international. The ERA Chair team has contributed to new partnerships and actions, such as the participation of RECETOX on the realization of already running HAPIEE cohort.
In the second and third reporting period, the research group has been stabilized and lot of efforts has been put into the development of internal and external research cooperations. Internally, the cooperation run smoothly especially in the Research programme of Environmental Health and also with the research infrastructure of Population studies, which highly benefits from the presence of ERA Chairs research group. The external cooperation has been developed both nationally and internationally. Nationally, there is close cooperation with the Masaryk Memorial Cancer Institute, Institute of Health Information and Statistics of the Czech Republic, Charles University, National Institute of Public Health and many others. Internationally, the cooperation is being developed within joint research projects, e.g. with Utrecht University, IS Global in Spain, UCL, and many others.
All the project objectives have been fulfilled:
- The ERA Chair and the team members were hired
- The ERA Chair group has been established, became operational and reached sustainability through participation in RECETOX environment, internal and external collaborations and their success in competitive research funding,
- The ERA Chairs contributed to many research projects – development and implementation and introduced important partnerships and collaborations both thanks to their previous experiences and professional links, but also thanks to developed expertise at RECETOX,
- Contributed to the visibility of both RECETOX and the actual research and educational topic of environmental health and environmental epidemiology, which was for long time underrepresented and not well developed in the whole region,
- Contributed to increase of international and national research funding and to the development of new study programmes.
R-Exposome Chair is a CSA project, and therefore, its main activities involve mainly capacity building - building the expertise in Environmental Health and Environmental Epidemiology, and networking rather than research. Nevertheless, the research component is very important. The research activities of the ERA Chair group focused on investigation of the associations of environmental exposures with biomarkers, environmental exposures with health outcomes, biomarkers with health outcomes, and examination of the interplay (effect modifications) of various types of factors affecting health.
The main datasets used for this work were existing data from CELSPAC population studies, existing (mainly externally routinely collected) geographically defined data and data collections, such as HAPIEE, Young Adults, TNG. In addition to data available in the Czech Republic, ERA Chair researchers will use data from other countries, including those from the Central and Eastern Europe, to further increase knowledge base by evidence from the region, and available data from elsewhere for international comparative analyses. In terms of exposures, the specific areas for research activities will be defined by type of data available, such as demographic, social, economic, psychosocial and behavioural determinants of health, individual-level environmental exposures, including biomarkers of exposures and -omics measurements and geographical exposures and GIS data. All these activities hav been contributing to fill the gap in capacities for the exposome research at RECETOX and contribute to the development of this concept within the ERA.
The main datasets used for this work were existing data from CELSPAC population studies, existing (mainly externally routinely collected) geographically defined data and data collections, such as HAPIEE, Young Adults, TNG. In addition to data available in the Czech Republic, ERA Chair researchers will use data from other countries, including those from the Central and Eastern Europe, to further increase knowledge base by evidence from the region, and available data from elsewhere for international comparative analyses. In terms of exposures, the specific areas for research activities will be defined by type of data available, such as demographic, social, economic, psychosocial and behavioural determinants of health, individual-level environmental exposures, including biomarkers of exposures and -omics measurements and geographical exposures and GIS data. All these activities hav been contributing to fill the gap in capacities for the exposome research at RECETOX and contribute to the development of this concept within the ERA.