RECETOX
Founded in 1983, RECETOX (formerly the Research Centre for Toxic Compounds in the Environment) is an independent department of Masaryk University’s Faculty of Science. The centre is engaged in research and education in the fields of environmental and health. Its principal activities comprise monitoring toxic compounds in the environment, various products and human tissues, and evaluating the risks they pose, as well as their associated toxicological and ecotoxicological health effects; developing new sampling and analytical methods; developing new chemical tools and methodologies, biotechnologies and software tools. RECETOX rapidly responds to new challenges concerning environmental contamination monitoring and exposure of the population to toxic compounds and their mixtures, proposes preventive and legislative measures, and offers appropriate interventions for chemicals management.
The centre works closely with various industrial partners to safeguard human health and ecosystems from the effects of toxic compounds. Furthermore, through hosting of the National Center for Toxic Compounds, and the Stockholm Convention Regional Center (SCRC) for capacity building and transfer of technology, RECETOX supports countries in Europe and Africa, as well as international institutions in the region in the implementation of international treaties and agreements for the protection of human health and the environment.
In recent years, RECETOX has become one of Masaryk University’s leading institutes in terms of implementation of international scientific projects, currently (2020) implementing 18 H2020 projects, as part of the European Framework Programmes.
RECETOX Research Infrastructure
RECETOX’s Research Infrastructure supports the implementation of interdisciplinary research projects. Divided into individual core facilities, it analyses a wide range of anthropogenic natural substances and toxins in environmental or biological matrices, conducts long-term environmental and population studies, and develops sophisticated software tools for management, analysis, interpretation, and visualization of data.
RECETOX RI is composed of three main core facilities:
- Trace Analytical Laboratories
- Information systems and data analysis
- Population studies
RECETOX RI offers its resources and services to the scientific community, both internally and externally. Users from academia and research organizations can apply for access to the infrastructure through the “Open Access” project, which covers most of the related costs and provides access through a transparent bidding process. Industrial and commercial users may use the research infrastructure capacities as part of collaborative or contracted research.
Study at RECETOX
RECETOX offers multidisciplinary study programs incorporating a vast array of fields, specifically designed to address the highly complex interactions between environment and health. Successful completion of the programs paves the way to countless career opportunities in the public (research, government) as well as private sectors. Students can enrol in bachelor, master and doctoral study programmes in Environment and Health, Computational Biology and Biomedicine.
Research at RECETOX
The Environmental Chemistry and Modelling research programme focuses on understanding the mechanisms and processes affecting the emissions and fate of chemicals in the environment, as well as the exposure of individuals and populations to the environment, in order to provide tools for the interpretation of data from environmental monitoring and human biomonitoring networks.
The Environmental Toxicology Programme focuses on the environmental impacts of both acute and chronic chemical exposures. Adverse Outcome Pathway (AOP) combining modelling and testing strategies are utilized to predict the environmental impacts of complex chemical mixtures. Combined exposures to various factors that, based on individual susceptibility, can significantly contribute to an individual’s excessive burden and lead to the development of pathologies are investigated.
The new Environmental Epidemiology research program deals with biomarkers of exposure and effect, the sensitivity of individual organisms, and other factors such as socioeconomic determinants of health, nutrition or physical activity. In this context, the technology used for analyzing of omics data, biobanking capacities, and the development of a bioinformatics platform to support the interpretation of multi-omics and epidemiological data are being bolstered.
The Chemical tools for diagnostics and therapy programme focuses on the development of new photo-activatable systems and supramolecular carriers as specific systems that exhibit specific biological activities or serve as auxiliary systems for biological or medical applications.
The Loschmidt laboratories for protein engineering focus on the basic principles of enzymatic catalysis and the development of protein and cellular biocatalysts for environmental, chemical, and biomedical applications. They use protein engineering, synthetic biology, and analyze large genomic databases to develop and prepare new useful catalysts.
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RECETOX
Masaryk University, Faculty of Science
Kamenice 753/5, pavilion A29
625 00 Brno
rcx-info@recetox.muni.cz
www.recetox.muni.cz/en
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