Work Packages

Syddansk Universitet (SDU)

Henrik Holbech

hol[at]biology.sdu.dk

  • Ensure scientific coordination of the overall project;
  • Monitor and manage the work packages, data handling, innovation management and ethics to guarantee effective and timely communication of any issues that arise;
  • Organize cooperation with international partners and clustering with sister projects under the Call BHC-27-2018;
  • Perform financial, contractual and day-to-day operational management of the consortium;
  • Provide and maintain the consortium internal communication infrastructure.

Umweltbundesamt (UBA)

Jürgen Arning, Simone Schalles

juergen.arning[at]uba.de simone.schalles[at]uba.de

  • Setting up searchable databases to collect the data generated and analysed within the project;
  • Organize the knowledge transfer and exchange to project partners and work packages;
  • Provide regulatory input to ensure optimized EU-wide applicability of the results;
  • Support the selection of case study compounds based on available data at the beginning of the project;
  • Establish a User Reference Group (URG) of recipients of tools and tests developed within the project.

Universiteit Antwerpen (UA)

Dries Knapen

dries.knapen[at]uantwerpen.be

  • Development of cross-class thyroid hormone disruption Adverse Outcome Pathway (AOP) network;
  • Taxonomic applicability assessment for cross-class extrapolation purposes;
  • Prioritization of assays across vertebrate classes for validation in Work Package 7.

Helmholtz-Zentrum für Umweltforschung (UFZ)

Gerrit Schüürmann

gerrit.schuurmann[at]ufz.de

  • Bioavailability profilers for Modes of Action (MOA)-specific thyroid disruptors;
  • Physiologically based toxicokinetic (PBTK) models for rat and fish addressing bioavailability and biotransformation;
  • Molecular Initiating Event/MOA-specific quantitative structure–activity relationship (QSAR) models for thyroid disruption;
  • Thyroid disrupting key events and MOA profilers across species;
  • Decision Support System for identifying thyroid-active compounds employing Bayesian statistics.

Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg (UHEI)

Thomas Braunbeck, Lisa Baumann

braunbeck[at]uni-hd.de lisa.baumann[at]uni-heidelberg.de

  • Determine key events (KEs) of thyroid disruption in different vertebrate classes;
  • Identify thyroid-related adverse outcomes (AOs) in different vertebrate classes;
  • Use omics and in vitro approaches to address molecular initiating events, explain KEs and predict their significance (AOs) at higher levels;
  • Enhance existing guidelines for endocrine disruption testing by adding thyroid-related endpoints and biomarkers.

École Normale Supérieure de Lyon (ENSL)

Frédéric Flamant

frederic.flamant[at]ens-lyon.fr

  • Gathering information of regulatory and mechanistic mammalian studies of chosen reference compounds as base of the thyroid disruption (TD) Adverse Outcome Pathway (AOP) network establishment;
  • Improvement of the current TD biomarkers in mammals by additional parameters characterizing the AOP with the focus of a potential implementation in Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Test Guidelines. The focus will be put on thyroid hormone effects on target tissue (genomics) and biomarker panels in blood (metabolomics) for extrapolation to humans;
  • Development and application of AOP network-based approach for epidemiological and human exposure studies to identify most relevant TD toxicants and characterize their role in TD and related disorders and improve hazard and risk assessment.

Syddansk Universitet (SDU)

Henrik Holbech

hol[at]biology.sdu.dk

  • Prepare Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) for experimental validation of Biomarkers and Endpoints (B/E);
  • Distribute exposure chemical(s) of the same batch number(s) to involved laboratories;
  • Collect experimental data and evaluate test validity criteria. Perform statistical analysis according to Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) guidance;
  • Evaluate B/E sensitivity, stability, variability and statistical power and prepare a validation report;
  • Adjust SOPs according to the evaluation and conclude on B/E suitability of inclusion in OECD Test Guidelines in collaboration with OECD and the Advisory Board;
  • Enhance existing guidelines for endocrine disruption testing by adding thyroid-specific endpoints and biomarkers.

AquaTT (ATT)

Marieke Reuver

marieke[at]aquatt.ie

  • Promote the project activities and results beyond the consortium to regulators, scientific community, private stakeholders, policy makers and the general public;
  • Ensure efficient data and knowledge management, facilitating open access to appropriate results;
  • Ensure suitable IP management strategies and processes are applied to ERGO;
  • Capture key messages and outcomes, based on knowledge generated through the ERGO project from each individual technical WP as well as combined results, for active knowledge transfer to key target users to enrich the project implementation and ensure a channel for transfer of outputs to end users;
  • Maximize post-project uptake by developing thorough and forward-thinking plans that clearly outline the potential end-users of the project. Optimise post-project uptake by knowledge transfer activity required to ensure objective and measurable short and long-term project impacts.

Syddansk Universitet (SDU)

Henrik Holbech

hol[at]biology.sdu.dk

Ensure compliance with the 'ethics requirements' set out in this work package