Current
Key outcomes, impact and future directions discussed in Kuopio
The final EDCMET General Assembly was arranged in Kuopio, Finland, on 8 – 9 April 2024. In the meeting, the work of the past more than five years was summed up. The key findings and outcomes were presented, and the impact and future directions beyond EDCMET were discussed.
There was an open session for invited speakers, too. We heard great presentations by Eva Kumar from the Finnish Institute of Public Health and Clinical Nutrition, Marjukka Kolehmainen from the University of Eastern Finland (Institute of Public Health and Welfare) and Raimo Pohjanvirta from the University of Helsinki (Department of Food Hygiene and Environmental Health).
The work towards safer environment and better health will continue.
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EDCMET Stakeholder Workshop on 24 April 2024:
Improved methods for assessment of metabolic effects of EDs
Endocrine disruptors (EDs) are defined as exogenous chemicals that alter functions of the endocrine system, thereby causing adverse health effects in an organism or its progeny. These substances are also suspected of being related to the development of metabolic diseases such as obesity, fatty liver, high blood cholesterol and diabetes. However, validated methods to evaluate the metabolic effects of endocrine disruptors have been lacking for a long time. There is also a lack of a comprehensive understanding of the mechanisms by which these chemical compounds disrupt metabolic processes and can cause health impairments.
EDCMET arranges a stakeholder workshop on 24 April 2024, 9 -12 CET. The workshop is arranged as an online-only event.
We welcome representatives from research, regulatory authorities, industry, civil society and contract research organisations, policy makers as well as other experts working in the field of EDs.
In the workshop, the EDCMET speakers provide insight into the scientific achievements and the progress in method development. In addition, stakeholders share their perspectives on the work done in EDCMET.
Click here for more information and the programme
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EDCMET General Assembly 30 – 31 October 2023
The EDCMET General Assembly meeting was held online on 30 – 31 October 2023. There were excellent presentations and lively discussions on the final steps of the project as well as the results and impact.
An online EDCMET stakeholder workshop is being planned for April – May 2024 – Stay tuned!
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EURION Annual Meeting 2023
The EURION Cluster Annual Meeting 2023 was held face-to-face in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, on 30-31 January 2023. The idea of the meeting was to present and discuss the latest advances in research by the cluster towards improving the identification of endocrine disrupters.
For a general overview of the meeting, see EURION Annual Meeting Report 2023.
For research highlight updates from the eight cluster projects, see EURION Annual Meeting 2023 presentations.
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EDCMET General Assembly meeting 2023
The EDCMET project held the General Assembly meeting 2023 in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, on 1 – 2 February 2023.
It was very helpful to meet face-to-face and discuss the project work and progress together. It was also great fun to collaborate and discuss the work more inofficially.
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MEP Sirpa Pietikäinen meets EDCMET project
Sirpa Pietikäinen, a Member of the European Parliament, visited the University of Eastern Finland on 1 November 2022. Pietikäinen held a meeting with the coordinator of the EDCMET project, professor Anna-Liisa Levonen, senior researcher Jenni Küblbeck and assistant professor Vittorio Fortino.
After the meeting MEP Sirpa Pietikäinen held a public lecture on unknown health risks. The lecture provoked many thoughts in the audience. Pietikäinen is doing excellent work raising awareness of environmental risk factors for health, including endocrine disrupters.
The EDCMET project was delighted to host the visit and is looking forward to further collaboration!
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EDCMET WP4 workshop
EDCMET organises a workshop on 6 – 8 July 2022 in Barcelona, Spain. The workshop deals with the population-based assessment of exposure to chemicals and ED-related metabolic effects (EDCMET work package 4). The workshop consists five main sessions during three days. The EDCMET work package 4 warmly welcomes other EDCMET members, EURION cluster colleagues and the External Scientific Advisory Board members to participate in the workshop.
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New Policy Brief: Towards safer chemicals recommendations for reliable test methods to identify EDs
EURION cluster consists of eight projects that determine new testing and screening methods to identify endocrine disruptors.
EURION has now developed a policy brief which sets out new and innovative tests for endocrine disrupters.
Read the EURION news here
Download the policy brief here
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EURION Annual Meeting 20 – 21 January 2022
The EURION Annual Meeting took place online on 20 – 21 January 2022. Tens of EURION colleagues spent two days discussing the latest advances and discussion the future plans in research towards improving the identification of EDs.
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EDCMET General Assembly 18-19 November 2021
The EDCMET project held a General Assembly meeting at German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (BfR), Berlin, on 18 – 19 November 2021. Some participants followed the meeting online.
On the first day, the stakeholder workshop outcomes, EURION collaboration as well as the project progress were presented and discussed. On the second day, there were thematic breakout groups to enhance collaboration between the different scientific teams. The many formal and informal face-to-face discussions were of great value. Some work is a little behind the planned schedule but all in all the project is progressing well. We are expecting valuable EDCMET results and impact.
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EDCMET Stakeholder Workshop 17 November 2021
EDCMET stakeholder workshop takes place on 17 November 2021 at 12:30 – 17 CET. The stakeholder workshop gathers representatives from research, regulatory authorities, industry, civil society and contract research organisations, policymakers as well as other experts working in the field of EDCs. At the workshop, results from the first phase of the EDCMET project as well as stakeholder perspectives are presented.
The workshop is open to all and free of charge. No registration is required.
See the programme of the workshop here (pdf)
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Do endocrine disrupters have metabolic effects?
Hormonihäiriköt voivat väijyä myös lihavuuden ja diabeteksen taustalla – Itä-Suomen yliopisto on mukana kansainvälisessä tutkimushankkeessa, jossa selvitetään ympäristövaikutusten yhteyttä metabolisiin sairauksiin.
Read about the EDCMET project in the local newspaper Karjalainen.
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Environmental chemicals and fatty liver
“If we think about the development of fatty liver, metabolic disruptors can contribute to it in a number of ways. For example, they can activate nuclear receptors that regulate fat metabolism in cells and increase the accumulation of fat in liver cells. They can also increase oxidative stress, which depletes cellular resources and reduces the ability of cells to react to environmental stimuli”, says EDCMET Project Researcher Sini Pitkänen. Read the whole article Microbial therapy for fatty liver by Ulla Kaltiala, University of Eastern Finland.
In the picture, project researher Sini Pitkänen from the University of Eastern Finland.
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EDCMET Stakeholder Workshop 17 November 2021
Save the date: EDCMET stakeholder workshop is arranged on 17 November 2021. The workshop is arranged as an online event. The idea of the workshop is to present the results from the first phase of the EDCMET project and to hear the feedback from the stakeholders. Mark the day to your calendars today!
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EURION Newsletter #1
The first EURION Newsletter is out now!
To receive the next EURION newsletter and any other exciting cluster news, subscribe the EURION news.
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EDCMET General Assembly 3 February 2021
The EDCMET General Assembly meeting was held online on 3 February 2021. Over 30 EDCMET staff members gathered together to catch up with the project progress and to view the steps for the following years. Also, we received valuable feedback and comments from the External Scientific Advisory Board members. One highlight of the day were the short presentations given by young researchers and postdocs working for the project, for example Azam Rashidian (University of Tübingen), Raghavendra Mysore (University of Eastern Finland), Brecht Attema (Wageningen University), Outi Kummu (University of Oulu) and Saranya Palasniswamy (University of Oulu).
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EDCMET at the EURION Annual Meeting 28 – 29 January 2021
The EURION Cluster Annual Meeting was held virtually on 28 – 29 January 2021. The EDCMET project highlights were presented to the cluster colleagues and well as stakeholders. In the virtual poster hall, the EDCMET project staff presented seven posters. Assistant Professor Vittorio Fortino’s poster was one of the spotlight posters that were presented in the virtual auditorium.
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EURION introduced at the Second Annual Forum on Endocrine Disruptors 17 – 18 Dec 2020
The Second Annual Forum on Endocrine Disruptors arranged by the European Commission will take place virtually on 17 – 18 December 2020. The Forum will bring together scientists, policy makers, public and private stakeholders with expertise on endocrine disruptors to exchange information and best practices, identify challenges and build synergies, in order to inform the Commission’s reflections. The EURION cluster and the EDCMET project are presented in the afternoon on 17 December 2020.
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EURION Stakeholder Workshop 11 Dec 2020
The EURION stakeholder workshop takes place online on 11 December 2020. The workshop will gather representatives from regulatory authorities, industry, civil society and contract research organisations, policymakers as well as other experts working in the field of endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs). The purpose of this workshop is to present and discuss stakeholder views, needs and expectations related to EDC test method development within EURION. For more information, see EURION website. The EURION cluster consists of eight projects receiving funding from the same Horizon 2020 call.
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Introductions to EDCMET and other EURION projects published in IJMS Special Issue
The EDCMET project outline is presented in the International Journal of Molecular Sciences special Issue “Advances in the Research of Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals 2.0”. During its 5-year journey, EDCMET aims to identify novel ED mechanisms of action, to generate (pre)validated test methods to assess the metabolic effects of EDs, and to predict emergent adverse biological phenotypes by following the adverse outcome pathway (AOP) paradigm. Find out more in the publication!
Also our colleagues from EURION cluster published interesting review articles on their projects in the same special issue.
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EDCMET Poster for the SOT Conference
The EDCMET project was supposed to present a poster at the 2020 SOT Annual Meeting – Society of Toxicology in Anaheim, USA. Due to COVID-19, the face-to-face conference was cancelled. The EDCMET poster can be found below (poster in pdf format). The conference was carried out partly online. The online materials can be found on the conference website.
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Follow us via Twitter
The EDCMET project can be found in Twitter! You may follow us at @edcmet_eu.
Also, the EURION cluster now uses Twitter. See @EurionCluster.
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ECDMET at Researchers’ Night in Kuopio
The European Reserchers’ Night is a mega-event that takes place every year at the same time in many European cities. This year, Researchers’ Night was organised on 27 September 2019. In Finland, the EDCMET project was present at the Reseachers’ Night at the Matkus shopping center in Kuopio.
The EDCMET project had a stand Muovia, meikkejä ja metabolinen oireyhtymä (“Plastic, make-up and the Metabolic syndrome”). At the stand, children could do pipetting experiments and adults received information on endocrine disrupting chemicals and the EDCMET project. The visitors were very interested, and worried, on the possible effects of different chemicals in cosmetics, food and our daily environment. Altogether about 180 children tried out the EDCMET mini laboratory!
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EDCMET Flyer
The EDCMET project flyer is ready and is being distributed at different events. Downoad the EDCMET flyer (pdf).
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EDCMET featured in R&D Magazine
Adequate validated toxicological testing strategies for metabolic effects of EDs are lacking and the current testing tools do not appropriately identify effects related to pathways or health outcomes, in which metabolic EDs may be implicated. To read more on EDCMET and our approach to address this and other gaps in EDC testing and to develop novel testing methods for regulatory purposes, see our recent article Investigating the Metabolic Impact of Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals in R&D Magazine.
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Project of the Month
EDCMET is the “Project of the Month” of the East and North Finland EU Office in Brussels.
The news is in Finnish: EDCMET on hanke, joka yhdistää usean tieteenalan asiantuntijoita tarkoituksenaan tutkia ympäristökemikaaleja, joilla on hormonien kaltaisia vaikutuksia. Lue lisää…
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Kick-off meeting
The EDCMET Kick-off meeting was held in Brussel on 1 February 2019.
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What is the EDCMET project all about?
EDCMET project secures H2020 funding to study metabolic effects of endocrine disruptors.
Endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDs) are known as compounds which exert adverse effects by interfering with hormone-related signalling pathways. The concept of endocrine disruption has recently been extended to metabolic alterations which may result in diseases such as obesity, diabetes and fatty liver disease, which constitute an increasing health concern worldwide. …continue reading the news on the UEF website!
