TOX-EDC: Wastewater profiling for community-wide human exposure assessment from environmental endocrine disrupting chemicals in personal care and consumer products

Funder: Leverhulme Trust

Project No: RPG-2013-297 (project details) 

Endocrine disruptors (EDCs) disturb hormonal regulation and the normal endocrine system. Unfortunately there is limited understanding of human exposure to these environmental stressors. Novel approaches are needed to identify cause-effect relationships between EDCs and humans. This highly exploratory multi-disciplinary project will introduce a new tool for real-time verification of community-wide exposure to EDCs in personal care and consumer products (e.g. plasticizers, UV-filters, antimicrobials) via the analysis of human biomarkers in wastewater. The ultimate goal of TOX-ECD is to evaluate the direct exposure of populations to EDCs at a given time and location in the context of their wider environmental occurrence.