This site is intended for EEMGS members and any party interested in the broad field of environmental mutagenesis and/or in our activities.
The EEMGS is a scientific society that encourages the study of mutagens and substances of related biological activity in the human environment, particularly as these mutagens may be of concern to public health, and to engage in and sponsor research, study and dissemination of information relating to the foregoing.”
Dear EEMGS members,
the annual conference 19-23. May in Rennes/France was very successful in every regard. The EEMGS award presentations were both excellent and you can read some information about the awardees further below. In addition to the outstanding speakers during the regular sessions, a HUMN (HUman MicroNucleus Project) workshop, organized by Michael Fenech, completed the program. During the conference, at the General Assembly, our newly elected vice president Sabine Langie took office, George Johnson became the new president of EEMGS, and Paul Fowler came into office as new secretary, while Helga Stopper stays in the board as past-president.
We are looking forward to the upcoming activities and interactions with our members and local societies.
George Johnson, Sabine Langie, Roland Frötschl, Paul Fowler, Helga Stopper
Linked in
Why not keep up to date and connecting by joining the linked in group https://lnkd.in/gqeyDrk
Meeting Announcements
In light of the recent circumstances in the world due to the Coronavirus pandemic, and, in particular, in Portugal where it has been declared a State of Emergency, it is with regret that we have decided to cancel the 2020 EEMGS meeting. Those who have already registered or expressed interest will receive details on how to either receive a refund or roll over registrations to a future meeting.
The EEMGS Executive Committee is currently exploring several possibilities for reorganising a meeting in Porto. We will inform you of progress as soon as possible.
In Memoriam
Dr. Richard Williams (1975 – 2020)
We are greatly saddened to inform you that Dr. Richard Williams, our Chief Scientific Officer, passed away unexpectedly on the 29th of January. A senior and long-standing employee of Lhasa, we have lost a dear friend and valued colleague.
Rich joined Lhasa as a Scientist in 2004, with his initial work focussing on the development of structural alerts for genotoxicity in Derek for Windows. As his career developed and progressed at Lhasa he played an increasingly major role in the scientific direction of Lhasa’s toxicology software, including the implementation of negative predictions for mutagenicity and the continued development of Derek Nexus both to improve its predictivity and its coverage of new endpoints.
His significant role in the ongoing development of Derek Nexus was instrumental in Lhasa being awarded a 2016 Queen’s Awards for Enterprise: Innovation, for the innovative development of expert knowledge-based software for the prediction of toxicity.
In January 2018 he was appointed Lhasa’s Chief Scientific Officer to lead the development and delivery of Lhasa’s scientific strategy. His enthusiastic and energetic approach to this role has successfully positioned Lhasa to meet the needs of our member base and the wider scientific community both now and in the future. Over the last few months Rich was heavily involved in Lhasa’s efforts to support our members in light of the recent discovery of N-nitrosamines in some marketed pharmaceuticals.
Rich was a hugely knowledgeable scientist, a great mentor and a truly inspirational leader. He was generous with his time, his knowledge and his compassion. He believed that a key part of his role was to support others; to help them deliver, to become better at their role. He was a leader not because of his position but because of the actions he took. People followed him because they believed in him and the values he expressed. He helped make Lhasa feel much more than a workplace, he helped make it a community.
His influence was felt much more broadly than just within Lhasa and its member base. He was a recognised expert scientist and leader in his field, with an international reputation. This is exemplified by both his publications record and his work with various scientific groups including the Industrial Genotoxicology Group (IGG), the International Workshops on Genotoxicity Testing (IWGT) and UKEMS (the UK branch of the European Environmental Muta-Genesis Society (EEMGS)).
Rich has left a void within Lhasa and the scientific community that can never be replaced, but we remain committed to fulfilling the scientific vision that Rich was so passionate about. His legacy will continue to live on here at Lhasa through the work we will continue to do and the people he has mentored and inspired.
But Rich was much more than just a friend, colleague and scientist. He was a partner, father, son and brother. It is with his close family and particularly with his partner, Gina, and his son, Dylan, that our thoughts are with. The Lhasa community that he helped build will always be there for them and we will continue to support them in any way we can.
2019 EEMGS Awards
Frits Sobels Award
Barbara Tudek
Prof. dr hab. Barbara Tudek
04.06.1951 – 01.03.2019
Barbara Tudek received her doctoral degree in 1983 from the Warsaw Medical University, Poland. After her PhD studies she went to Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research, Toronto, Canada, as a postdoc, followed by a stay at the Institute Gustave Roussy, Villejuif, France. She subsequently returned to Poland and joined the Institute of Biochemistry and Biophysics, Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw where she established her independent research group and obtained professorship in 2006. In 2012 she joined the Institute of Genetics and Biotechnology, Faculty of Biology, Warsaw University as an academic professor. She was an active member of EEMGS for almost 40 years and a President of the Polish EEMGS Section for 10 years, from 2002 till 2012. She organized two annual EEMGS meetings in Warsaw, Poland in 2002 and 2012.
Her early studies were devoted to the genotoxic properties of various food and petroleum derived compounds, such as furfural, thiram, nitrofurans, flavonoids and other carcinogens. As an independent researcher she focused on the study of the mechanisms of removal of DNA lesions arising from oxidation and alkylation.
Oxidative stress is a source of multiple DNA lesions. In human cells damaged bases such as 8-oxoguanine are removed from the DNA chain by the Base Excision Repair or by the phosphohydrolase hMTH1 from the free nucleotide pool. Her research group in collaboration with the group of Prof. R. Oliński from Bydgoszcz University determined the differential efficiency of 8oxoG removal in healthy versus colon and lung cancer patients. These studies suggested that the levels of 8-oxoG and DNA repair enzymes can be used as a prognostic of long-term patient survival and pointed to the need to develop compounds that would block DNA damage pathways in hopes to increase the efficiency of existing anti-cancer therapies.
Much of her independent work focused on the study of the metabolism and mutagenic capacity of oxidized derivatives of polyunsaturated fatty acids such as acrolein, croton and 4-hydroxy-2-nonenal (HNE). These compound can produce simple DNA adducts such as ε-adenine and ε-cytosine, which have high miscoding capacity, or larger propano adducts and DNA crosslinks, which induce transcription arrest, recombination and chromosomal aberrations.
Etheno adducts are removed by the Base Excision Repair system. Her group determined that, as in the case of 8-oxoG, the efficiency of removal of εA and εC differs in the leukocytes of lung and colon cancer patients versus healthy controls and found significant alterations in the efficiency of lesion repair in the healthy versus tumor tissue. It was suggested that alteration to the efficiency of DNA repair can drive carcinogenesis into a specific histopathological type. These studies also showed that treatment of cells with alkylating agents increased their sensitivity to oxidative and methylating agents, hence showing that different mutagenic compounds, when acting together, can have synergistic effects.
Many of her studies pointed to a link between ageing and the efficiency of DNA removal. Large HNE-derived crosslinks to DNA are removed by the Xpf/ERCC1 system. In collaboration with the group of Prof. L. Niederhofer she showed that mice deficient in ERCC1 function show accelerated ageing when fed with a diet rich in polyunsaturated fatty acids. HNE can also produce adducts to proteins and her group has underlined the negative impact of large HNE concentrations on the function of CSA/B protein, involved in initiation of Co-transcriptional DNA repair (TCR) and WRN helicase, responsible for maintaining DNA integrity. Mutations in CSB and WRN lead to development of the Cockayne and Werner syndromes both of which result in accelerated ageing.
Prof. Barbara Tudek studies pointed to the importance of individual differences in DNA damage removal efficiency to both carcinogenesis and potentially ageing. She has also underlined the versatile effects of mutagen impact on DNA and protein integrity depending on the concentration or co-occurrence of different damaging compounds. Her studies contributed to deeper understanding the DNA damage removal mechanisms and gave incentives for improvement of cancer diagnostics and anti-cancer therapies.
Early career award
Prof. Dr. Julia Bornhorst
Julia Bornhorst studied food chemistry at the University of Münster, Germany, where she also did her PhD from 2009-2012, in the group of Prof. Dr. Tanja Schwerdtle, working on “Manganese induced neurotoxicity”. From 2012 to 2013 Julia worked as an independent postdoctoral researcher in the research group of Prof. Dr. Michael Aschner, Department of Pediatrics and Toxicology, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, USA, financed by a fellowship of the German Research Foundation (DFG). During this time, she further established her own research profile especially in the field of alternative animal toxicity testing by establishing new testing strategies for C. elegans. Since then Julia herself established many fruitful collaborations with international groups in the field of genotoxicity, DNA damage response, DNA repair as well as new approaches in testing strategies for contaminants. After her postdoc, Julia went back to Münster to Tanja Schwerdtle, but soon established her own working group. After moving to the University of Potsdam with Tanja Schwerdtle in January 2014, Julia became a senior lecturer in her department. Since January 2019, despite still being within the age limit of an early career award, she is Professor in Food Chemistry at the University of Wuppertal, Germany.
Julia has been a GUM/EEMGS member since 2009, regularly attending and actively participating in their conferences. In addition, Julia is currently the secretary of GUM (since 2015). Among others, she was a local organizer of the EEMGS 2017 in Potsdam. She receiving the GUM Young Scientist Award in 2013, and her work was also well recognized by other scientific societies, resulting in the Young Toxicologist Merck Award of the German Society of Toxicology (GT) in March 2016.
To date Julia has published more than 40 peer-reviewed articles and 4 book chapters, and she has made important contributions to the field of alternative animal toxicity testing, especially by establishing new testing strategies for C. elegans, and she is a well-recognized international expert in the field of manganese toxicology.
Poster awards (in alphabetical order)
Adelene Clerge, University of Caen Normandy / ABTE ToxEMAC, Study of the genotoxicity of 7 oxy-PAHs: focus on DNA adducts
Martina Cotena, Aix Marseille University, Reproductive toxicity of combusted diesel additive containing nano-ceria: in vitro approach
Kira Kauffmann, RWTH Aachen University, Online monitoring of respiration activity helps characterizing and optimizing the Ames mutagenicity test
Rachel Lawrence, Swansea University Medical School, Measuring PIG-A mutation in humans: identification of factors that affect circulating mutation levels
Louis Legoff, University of Rennes/EHESP/Inserm, Identification of epigenetic histone modifications in human placentas