Prof. Nikolaos Thomaidis

Professor of Analytical Chemistry, Department of Chemistry, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece

Brief Biography of Nikolaos S. Thomaidis


Nikolaos S. Thomaidis, Professor of Analytical Chemistry at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, is specialized in Environmental and Food Chemistry. His research interests include the development of cutting-edge HRMS methodologies and workflows for a comprehensive chemical characterization of environmental and biological samples. He has extensive experience in supervising and coordinating research projects with both national and European funding, including the “Development of an intelligent system of epidemiological surveillance and environmental health monitoring” and the “LIFE APEX: systematic use of contaminant data from apex predators and their prey in chemicals management”.

Keynote title:

Monitoring of key environmental indicators to assess human exposure to emerging contaminants

Abstract

There is a growing recognition that chemical pollution is an immediate threat to humanity's safety and our planet. A toxic-free environment is within the European ambitions, since in 2017, the EC adopted the EU One Health Action Plan, which recognizes that human, animal and environmental health are interconnected. Humans and wildlife are exposed to mixtures of thousands of chemicals, including pharmaceuticals, pesticides, industrial chemicals, together with numerous transformation products, which pose substantial threat to the ecosystem and raise concerns for the human health. Due to their high trophic position in food webs, apex species are valuable indicators for assessing environmental health. Chemical monitoring data from apex species may reveal compounds with bioaccumulative and persistent properties. Through the implementation of the LIFE APEX project (2018-2022), a first pan-European biomonitoring study using apex predators and prey samples was implemented, revealing the ubiquitous presence of thousands of organic contaminants. An alternative approach for giving insights on human exposure is  through wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE). WBE has increased rapidly during the last decade and provides important real-time information about public health, lifestyle habits and exposure to environmental chemicals, through the analysis of untreated wastewater. In a recent proof of concept study, the use of sewage sludge was suggested as a proxy of the human exposure and its application in early warning systems to prevent bioaccumulation of hazardous chemicals, since correlations regarding the profile and concentrations of chemicals were revealed through the analysis of sewage sludge and human biological samples.


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