Protection Against Endocrine Disruptors Newsletter No. 3
June 2019
8 Academic Institutions
ÂŁ3.9 Million EC Funding
15 Early Stage Researchers
9 Countries
3 Partner Organisations
2 Industrial SMEs
s
A welcome from Project Coordinator, Dr Lisa Connolly: Just past the mid-way point of the project and following our successful mid-term review with the European Commission at our second and well received training School in Oslo, we are now entering even more exciting new times for the project. The early stage researchers have been working hard on many research aspects of endocrine disruption and it is starting to pay off. This issue sees the first publication by one of our early stage researchers, Berenice Collet. Berenice has successfully published a paper on in vitro methods for assessing thyroid receptor β and transthyretin transporter dis rupting activities in the prestigious Journal, Reproductive Toxicology. Further papers are in close following so watch this fruitful space!
In this issue:
More secondments are taking place, this month sees the arrival of Chi ara Talia to Queen’s University Belfast for three months, where she will expand her exciting programme assessing the effects of endocrine dis- ruptors on nuclear receptors linked to human health.
This year will bring us closer to the PROTECTED ITN conference where we will be presenting all of our exciting research outcomes, we will be aiming to communicate to peers, key stakeholders and the public. The future demands busy and rewarding work ahead, we are getting closer to our aim of protecting all against endocrine disruptors!
ESTIV Conference (an article by Elizabeth Goya Jorge) Summer School 2 Mid-Term Meeting Disrupting Science Communication (an article by Melissa Kelly) Balmoral Show 2019
The views and opinions expressed in this newsletter are purely those of the writers and may not in any circumstance be regarded as stating an official position of the European Commission.
ESTIV CONFERENCE October of 2018 was an exciting month for all the ESRs of PROTECTED project. First, senior researchers from INRA (Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique) in Toulouse hosted a one-week course of training in “Food Toxicology”. Later, the topic of “New approach methodologies for in vitro toxicology applications” attracted several PROTECTED project participants to fly to Berlin, where the 20th International Congress on In Vitro Toxicology (ESTIV2018) took place in one of the greatest venues of the German capital, the Estrel Hotel. The director of the partner company ProtoQSAR SL, Rafael Gozalbes, participated as a delegate. Two posters, presenting the research work developed by many of the project participants, were put forward by ESRs Mazia Amber and Que Thi Doan. Meanwhile, the ESR Elizabeth Goya Jorge presented some chemoinformatic advances of PROTECTED project during an oral presentation part of the session, “In silico modelling and read across approaches”.
A preconference workshop offered in ESTIV2018 allowed all the participant to be part of thought-provoking debates with experts on in vitro bioassays that included, among others, cell culture methods. Following the congress, the ESRs attended a two-day training course on in vitro skin irritation testing, organ-on-a-chip modelling, in silico physiologically -based kinetic modelling, and quantitative in vitro-in vivo extrapolation. The training was organized by the European Society of Toxicology In Vitro in collaboration with MatTek In Vitro Life Science Laboratories (Bratislava-Slovak Republic) and TissUse GmbH (Berlin-Germany). The course not only included the theoretical knowledge on the protocols presented by the specialists in the field, but also hands-on training experiences to handling reconstructed epidermis and multiorgan-chip-devices.
Among all the sponsors that exhibited products and services in ESTIV2018, the Joint Research Center (JRC) of the European Commission was a contact point of exchange and networking for PROTECTED project delegates. Several presentations and posters of the JRC dealt with the controversial subject of regulating the endocrine disruptors, which stands out as the importance of the research work that the PROTECTED project has been developing for two years now. It is so that some of the project ESRs honored the invitation made by the JRC during ESTIV2018 to participate in their annual Summer School and have been accepted as delegates. The debates and training will take place at the European Commission Joint Research Centre in Ispra, Italy, from the 21st to 24th of May 2019 and the main topic will be the "Non-Animal Approaches in Science: Challenges and Future Directions".
An article by Elizabeth Goya Jorge
PROTECTED’S SECOND SUMMER SCHOOL The second PROTECTED Summer School was held at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences from 3rd to 7th December 2018. This week long school explored laboratory fish models for ED exposures. Topics discussed included behavioural testing and zebrafish embryonic testing. A number of presentations by PROTECTED expert speakers including Prof. Paul Fowler (UNIABDN), Dr Merete Eggesbø (NIPH) and Prof Erik Ropstad (NMBU) covered topics such as gendered innovations, ethics and human/animal scientific integrity. The Training School also provided a Course in zebrafish husbandry and a two-day work-
shop in statistical methods for the risk assessment of chemical mixtures, which taught the principles of modelling pre and postnatal exposure in humans and animals plus a variety of data reduction methods which can be applied to mixtures in order to identify the chemicals associated with health. The two-day workshop was delivered by visiting scientist Dr Siddhartha Mandal of Public Health Foundation of India along with Prof. Merete Eggesbø of NIPH.
NEXT PROTECTED SUMMER SCHOOL The next PROTECTED Summer School on “Environmental Monitoring of Endocrine Disruptors” will be held at Universidad Austral De Chile Universidad Austral De Chile 11-20th November 2019.
PROTECTED’S Mid-Term Meeting Following PROTECTED 2nd Summer School, the Project’s Mid-Term meeting took place in Oslo over 10th and 11th December 2018. Project Officer Ms Luisa Marconi, and expert reviewer Professor Barbara Kasprzyk-Hordern (University of Bath, UK) joined us for the review. All PROTECTED partners, including all Early Stage Researchers took part. The project coordinator, Dr. Lisa Connolly, summarised the activities of the network to date and all
fellows presented the progress of their projects covering objectives, methodology used and results obtained so far. The fellows availed of the opportunity to discuss their project experience direct with Project Officer and Expert reviewer, after which Ms Marconi and Professor Kasprzyk-Hordern provided feedback on the progress of the project, which was all very positive.
DISRUPTING SCIENCE COMMUNICATION The World Health Organization describes an endocrine disruptor as “an exogenous substance or mixture that alters function(s) of the endocrine system and consequently causes adverse health effects in an intact organism, or its progeny, or (sub)populations.”
system is? I am a psychological scientist with some biological background, but have no idea what “exogenous substance” or “exogenous agent” means…
Knowing what I do now about endocrine disruptors after working with The US Environmental Protection ProtectED, I find it extremely imAgency defines an endocrine disruptor portant that those around me are inas “an exogenous agent that interformed and aware of the sources and feres with the synthesis, secretion, health outcomes associated with extransport, binding, action, or elimina- posure to these chemicals. tion of natural hormones in the body I had the wonderful experience of that are responsible for the mainteattending the Balmoral Show in Belnance of homeostasis, reproduction, fast last month with other Early Stage development, and/or behavior.” Researchers Mazia and Tobi. This was A well-versed biological or chemical an opportunity for us to have meanscientist may now have a clear picture ingful conversations with the public, in their head as to what these defini- and find out what they knew (or IF tions are describing, but what about they knew) about endocrine disrupthe rest of us? What about those of us tors. who do not know what the endocrine
I attempted to start most conversations by stopping the people who lingered around our ProtectED stand by asking them “Hey, have you heard about endocrine disruptors before?” Most people’s response was to quickly shake their head, mumble “no, sorry” and trail away to the adjacent stand that was offering free coffee and cakes. Or they just wanted a free Queen’s University red pen. I decided to change my tactics, and this small, but apparently monumental change made all the difference. I began to ask, “Hey, do you know anything about these chemicals that interfere with your endocrine system?” and the response was absolutely the opposite from before. I couldn’t believe how much people engaged with this question, and I was happy to chat with them and answer the questions
they had (to the best of my ability,
their likelihood of exposure.
because some of the more expert questions I had to transfer to Mazia and Tobi).
If there is something that I took away from this fun day chatting with is not going to be reading the latest the people and children at the Balmoral Show, it is that when you are issue from the Journal of Toxicology and Environmental Health. talking about your research to people outside academia/research- keep it simple.
When people responded with “No, what are they?”, I had a rehearsed response that I realized would explain endocrine disruptors in an accessible way.
All the fancy scientific jargon might win you points when it comes to I would say “endocrine disrupting writing papers up for publication, chemicals are chemicals found in but when you’re just having a conthings like plastics and pesticides versation with someone, be it a perthat interfere with the way our horson at an outreach event, or even a mones in our bodies work”. By using friend or family member- it’s best to examples such as plastics, it helped keep it simple. Speak with them uspeople to create a mental picture of ing words a teenager could underwhat an endocrine disruptor could stand, because as scientists we forpossibly be. Also, by using the term get that most people don’t normally “hormone” rather than “endocrine use the vocabulary we do. Use comsystem” people could understand mon examples and stay away from what I was referring to more comacronyms whenever possible. prehensively. I had great conversations with people and enjoyed inScience Communication is an accidental barrier that stands high beforming them of our research and tween what the scientists know and the simple ways they can reduce what the general public knows. It is
so important to use these public engagement events to our advantage, because after all, the general public
An article by Melissa Kelly
BALMORAL SHOW 2019 Over 17 th -18 th May 2019 PROTECTED participated in Northern Ireland’s biggest agrifood event, the Balmoral Show. In its 151st year, the 2019 show, at the EIKON Exhibition Centre, was a record breaker with over 120,000 people in attendance. Taking centre stage within the Queen’s University Belfast enclosure, the event provided an excellent opportunity for PROTECTED to showcase the research being undertaken and to engage with the general public.
come pathways and outlined simple steps that can help reduce chemical exposure. Children present were also very keen to become involved in experiments involving food dyes, and had lots of fun experimenting with skittles and smarties.
This was an invaluable outreach opportunity for the project. There was a great deal of public engagement enabling effective communication of the exciting research that is being undertaken within PROTECTThe challenge for the Early Stage Research- ED. ers in engaging with the general public was to communicate their research in in a easily understood manner. Since the Balmoral Show is largely an agricultural event, the ESRs thought it would be interesting to show how endocrine disrupting chemicals contaminate our food and animal feed and in turn have effects on human health. To demonstrate Oluwatobi Kolawole (ESR 4) carried out a rapid test for presence of toxins in animal feed. The researchers also communicated mixture effects of chemicals such as BPA, flame retardants, pesticides and phthalates in the daily environment on adverse out-
PROTECTED SECONDMENTS PROTECTED ESRs have been on the move since our last newsletter, with 12 Early Stage Researcher undertaking a total of 15 secondments throughout the Network.
PROTECTED PUBLICATIONS “Evaluation of a panel of in vitro methods for assessing thyroid receptor β and transthyretin transporter disrupting activities” Berenice Colleta,⁎, Eszter Simona,1, Sander van der Lindena,2, Nadia el Abdellaouia,3, Matthijs Nadermana, Hai-yen Mana, Irene Middelhofa, Bart van der Burga, Harrie Besselinka, Abraham Brouwer
UPCOMING EVENTS
BioDetectors Conference , Vienna 26-27th September 2019
PROTECTEDs 3rd Summer School on “Environmental Monitoring of Endocrine Disruptors” will be held at Universidad Austral De Chile Universidad Austral De Chile 11-20th November 2019
PROTECTED Final Conference—June 2020