Project description
A novel biomonitoring tool for assessing exposure to toxicants
Human biomonitoring (HBM) is a powerful tool used to evaluate a population’s exposure to toxicants. The data gathered is essential for assessing health impacts and supporting environmental and health policymaking in public health programmes. However, current HBM studies have limitations that need to be overcome through novel approaches. The EU-funded NTS-EXPOSURE project therefore aims to develop non-target screening analytical methods that will be able to detect new wastewater biomarkers and assess the collective consumption of or exposure to toxicants. To do this, it proposes a novel approach called wastewater-based epidemiology as an alternative biomonitoring tool. This work will help obtain vital information to inform authorities on community health status.
Objective
Humans are continuously exposed to toxicants by different routes, with potentially adverse effects on human health. Monitoring population exposure is a crucial part of public health programs and human biomonitoring (HBM) is the most widely used and powerful tool to evaluate the exposure of a population. These data are vital for health impact assessment and to support environmental and health policy-making in public health programs. However, novel approaches are needed in order to give additional information on exposure at population level and overcome the limitations of HBM studies. In this project, an innovative approach, called Wastewater-Based Epidemiology (WBE), is proposed as an alternative “biomonitoring tool” for the retrieval of epidemiological information from wastewater through the analysis of specific human urinary metabolites (biomarkers). Although WBE has been studied the last fifteen years, its application has been limited to target analytical methods and a few classes of compounds (i.e. illicit drugs). New methodologies such as the powerful high resolution mass spectrometry (HRMS) technique can opens new perspectives in the WBE field. The unique characteristics of HRMS combined with the potential of the WBE approach can give us the capability to provide valuable information for public health. Indeed, influent wastewater contains a wide range of chemical information about biological processes of the human body, which can be explored by the latest advances of HRMS and provide crucial data. The main objective is to develop non-target screening analytical methods based on HRMS coupled to liquid and gas chromatography that can detect new wastewater biomarkers and assess the collective consumption or exposure to toxicants. This project can establish and implement an integrated chemical analytical-epidemiological approach for the acquirement of crucial information and inform authorities and public health organizations on community health status.
Fields of science
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Programme(s)
Funding Scheme
MSCA-IF - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowships (IF)Coordinator
10561 Athina
Greece