Activities

The Department works to investigate environmental factors and their effects on human health. The main research lines focus on the survey of environmental contaminants, the assessment of human exposure with related health risks, and toxicity mechanisms of pollutants.
The assessment of environmental contamination is carried out not only for well-known and widespread compounds, like dioxins and PCBs, but also for new classes of "unconventional" pollutants, e.g., endocrine disruptors, potentially toxic "natural" compounds, and drugs entering the environment after human or veterinary use. The identification - for the first time - of illicit drugs in urban waste and river waters, led to a new original tool for the evidence-based monitoring of community drug abuse. For all these survey activities sophisticated analytical methods based on advanced mass spectrometric techniques are developed.
The Department is active in the assessment of human exposure to toxic compounds in the atmosphere and the diet, which is the main source of priority pollutants (PCBs, dioxins and other endocrine disruptors). Assessment of the risk associated to contamination in real-life scenarios has recently gained much importance. In order to respond to the growing demand for information, the Department is more and more involved in toxicological and ecotoxicological risk analysis, based on studies in field and predictive models of toxicity.
Molecular epidemiology studies are used to identify genetic and/or environmental factors posing risks to human health. By this approach, we search for new useful “biological markers" to identify susceptible subjects, in view of finding appropriate preventive strategies.
The Department has implemented an advanced technological proteomic platform, in order to identify proteins differentially expressed in biological compartments in various experimental and clinical conditions. This approach is particularly relevant in toxicology, since it can contribute to find new biomarkers of toxicity or pathology, and to identify molecular targets and toxic effect mechanisms of pollutants and drugs. To integrate our proteomic studies, we have now introduced among our activities metabolomics, i.e., the study of small molecules, such as amino acids, carbohydrates, lipids, hormones etc., the final products of protein expression and activity which contribute to define the biochemical phenotype of a biological system.
Mass spectrometry (MS) is a central analytical technique at the Department, where a complete set of state-of-the-art instrumentation is available, from GC-MS and LC-MS to MALDI-TOF-MS. These instruments are provided with modern solutions for sample introduction (chip-based nanoLC), sample ionization (ESI, DESI and MALDI), tandem MS (MSn) by triple quadrupole and TOF-TOF instruments, high mass resolution analysis (hybrid ion trap/orbitrap).