RNDr. Iva Sovadinová, Ph.D.

Project: ED-MALE-TOX - Environmental endocrine disruptors and male fertility: mechanisms and toxic effects

Person in Charge: doc. RNDr. Luděk Bláha, Ph.D.

Host institution: Research Centre for Toxic Compounds in the Environment, Faculty of Science, Masaryk university

Country of Origin: Czech Republic

Country of scientific activity: USA

Project duration: 24 months

Scientific panel: Life sciences

Abstract:

The project goals are to give full independence to the young outstanding reintegrating researcher to build her own scientific career and research group with the institutional support of the host institute in South Moravia region. With this support, she will continue exploring her expert field of endocrine disruptors and the funding gives her enough freedom to capitalize on her experience she acquired abroad. Under this project, she will address a worldwide issue in the last decades: the impairment of male reproductive health. Her project represents an interdisciplinary approach integrating in vitro toxicology, analytical and environmental chemistry and reflects up-to-date knowledge of current research. The overall goal is to improve the understanding of the multiple effects of endocrine disruptors on male fertility and their cellular and molecular mechanisms of action. The project will also address an endocrine-disrupting potential of air pollution in South Moravian region as a source of compounds altering male fertility. This is meant to help to improve general knowledge about environmental contamination and contribute to the discussions of environmental quality standards and also the public health in the South Moravia region. By a combination of chemical and biological characterization of air samples, a unique data set will be obtained that will allow detailed study of potential mechanisms of toxicity of air pollutants, better understanding the dependence between specific biological effects and a type and level of atmospheric pollutant mixture and will contribute to the ecological and human health risk assessment for air pollution in South Moravia. Such a complex approach has not been described in available literature yet.