Contacts:
Supervisor(s):
Professor Concettina La Motta
PhD project Title:
Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals (EDCs): improving the current health risk assessment procedure through theoretical and experimental approaches
Abstract of the PhD project:
This project aims at improving the risk assessment procedure currently adopted for the endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs), focusing on those affecting thyroid homeostasis. Moving from the existing data and making use of both computational tools and in vitro and in vivo studies, a novel basic model will be developed, able to predict adverse thyroid effects caused by EDCs. EDCs generally display a complex toxicity profile, thus making toxicological evaluation and health risk assessment difficult to achieve. Actually, they may show varied and multiple mechanism of action, which can be also different between and within species. A so complex profile makes the current standardized test methods rather insufficient to identify and test the complex toxicity of EDCs, and the application of traditional risk assessment principles may be problematic in the case of EDCs. Therefore, novel approaches are needed to get to a reliable risk assessment that is protective for the entire population.
Publications link: