News

Dr. Montse Marquès has been awarded with a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Global Postdoctoral Fellowship. She will be working on “The Chemical Exposome of Pregnant Women” (MANGO) at the Columbia Mailman School of Public Health (United States) under the supervision of Prof. Ana Navas-Acien and Prof. Gary Miller for two years. Afterwards, she will perform the incoming phase at TecnATox under the supervison of Prof. Domingo.

MANGO is a follow-up of INSULIN that will allow implementing the results of the project by means of a pilot prevention programme to reduce the exposure of pregnant women to hazardous chemicals.

Dr. Montse Marquès has been taking the 6-months course “Technology Commercialisation” organized by the TECNIOspring programme and under the direction and training of Jeff Skinner (London Business School). Yesterday morning, she was presenting how the negotiations for the commercialisation of the INSULIN mobile app are going on at the ACCIÓ auditorium (Barcelona).

Researchers of TecnATox have recently published a collaborative article with a group of investigators of the School of Pharmaceutical Sciences of Ribeirão Preto (University of São Paulo, Brazil), led by Prof. Fernando Barbosa Jr. In the article, which has been published in Science of the Total Environment, the authors analyzed the levels of bisphenols (BPs) and phthalate esters (PAEs) in toys commercialized in Brazil, estimated the migration rate into children's saliva and evaluated their daily exposure.

Prof. Marta Schuhmacher will be one of the participants in the Roundtable on women's participation in European Research and Innovation Projects, organized by the International Pre-Award Support Unit (USPIR) of Universitat Rovira i Virgili (URV). The event will take place next March 21 at 11 am. Registrations can be done at https://events.urv.cat/event_detail/80223/detail/taula-rodona-sobre-la-participacio-de-les-dones-en-projectes-europeus-de-recerca-i-innovacio.html

 

The project PETRO-FERTYL (Impacte del complex petroquímic de Tarragona en l’exposició a metalls i la infertilitat masculina) has received the Xavi Catà Grant, promoted by El Morell City Council. PETRO-FERTYL, which is perfomed in the framework of LED-FERTYL, is led by Dr. Montse Marquès and part of the PhD thesis of Ms. Elena Sánchez.

In the International Women's Day, TecnAtox wishes to highlight the role and thanks the significant contributions of all the women scientists of our research group.

How does environmental toxicants affect male fertility? This is one of the questions which will be addressed within the LedFertyl (Lifestyle and environmental determinantes of seminogramas and other male fertility related parameters), a collaborative investigation carried out within the "Rovira i Virgili" University by researchers of the Human Nutrition Unit and TecnATox.

The research team is recruiting 200 volunteers, men between 18 and 40 years of reproductive age. Interested people can send an email to  ledfertyl.nutricio@urv.cat indicating in the subject 'Ledfertyl Recruitment'.

As a member of the RESCOP Commission, Prof. José L. Domingo has just recently published a new article about the role of outdoor and indoor air quality in the spread of SARS-CoV-2 in the scientific journal Environmental Research.

Because the COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the need for maintaining particulate matter concentrations at low levels for multiple health-related reasons, the article emphasizes the importance of adopting preventive measures and applying air purification in indoor environments, such as schools, indoor public places (restaurants, offices, hotels, museums, theatres/cinemas etc.).

RESCOP is the first Thematic Commisson on COVID-19 & Outdoor/Indoor Air Quality (RESCOP Commission), promoted by the Italian Society of Environmental Medicine (SIMA) and formed by a large number of international researchers.

From the beginning of the pandemics, Prof. Domingo and other TecnATox researchers have been very active in understanding the links between indoor/outdoor exposure to air pollutants and SARS-CoV-2. This activity has led Prof. Domingo to be the URV (Universitat Rovira i Virgili) investigator with more scientific publications on SARS-CoV-2, according to Scopus database.

Dr. Montse Marquès has just published a new collaborative manuscript in Marine Pollution Bulletin, co-authored by researchers from the University of Girona and several French research institutions. The study, which was focused on the swordfish of the Catalan Sea, applied a multi method approach that considers their diet, their liver lipid content, and mercury accumulation in their bodies as well as in their prey. The aim was to highlight the links between trophic ecology, physiology (fish condition), and eco-toxicology.

Dr. Mònica Bulló and Dr. Christopher Papandreou, researchers at the Pere Virgili Health Research Institute (IISPV), have obtained an international project funded by the Alzheimer's Association (US) for the identification of metabolic markers of risk and progression for dementia and Alzheimer's disease. This study, coordinated by Dr. Bulló, Professor of the Department of Biochemistry and Biotechnology at the URV, in collaboration with ACE Alzheimer Center Barcelona, ​​Pablo de Olavide University and the University of Barcelona, ​​represents a great opportunity to identify early biomarkers of disease but also new therapeutic targets for Alzheimer, a highly prevalent and growing incident disease for which no effective treatment is yet available. With this study, the researchers from the NUMED group, ascribed to the Nutrition and Mental Health Research group, TecnATox technological center and CIBER, will provide all their experience acquired over years of research in cardiometabolic diseases including obesity, type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular diseases, to improve the prevention and treatment of dementia and Alzheimer's diseases that usually co-occur with cardiovascular risk factors.