Publications by authors named "Dagny Aurich"
Comprehensive characterization of European house dust contaminants: Concentrations and profiles, geographical variability, and implications for chemical regulation and health risk.
Sci Total Environ
December 2024
Article Synopsis
- - This study explores the levels and geographical differences of contaminants found in house dust across Europe, identifying over 1200 anthropogenic compounds using advanced techniques like mass spectrometry and suspect screening.
- - The research indicates that contaminant concentrations vary less than threefold within Europe, showing similarities with North American dust due to shared consumer products and materials.
- - It highlights geographical patterns, revealing that certain contaminants increased from north to south (like PAHs and chlorinated paraffins), whereas others, like biocides, decreased; it also emphasizes a significant risk from older, restricted contaminants, like DEHP and PCBs, despite limited toxicity data available for newer compounds.
Understanding historical chemical usage is crucial for assessing current and past impacts on human health and the environment and for informing future regulatory decisions. However, past monitoring data are often limited in scope and number of chemicals, while suitable sample types are not always available for remeasurement. Data-driven cheminformatics methods for patent and literature data offer several opportunities to fill this gap.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFNontargeted screening (NTS) utilizing liquid chromatography electrospray ionization high-resolution mass spectrometry (LC/ESI/HRMS) is increasingly used to identify environmental contaminants. Major differences in the ionization efficiency of compounds in ESI/HRMS result in widely varying responses and complicate quantitative analysis. Despite an increasing number of methods for quantification without authentic standards in NTS, the approaches are evaluated on limited and diverse data sets with varying chemical coverage collected on different instruments, complicating an unbiased comparison.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe Luxembourg Time Machine (LuxTIME) is an interdisciplinary project that studies the historical exposome during the industrialization of the Minett region, located in the south of Luxembourg. Exposome research encompasses all external and internal non-genetic factors influencing the health of the population, such as air pollution, green spaces, noise, work conditions, physical activity, and diet. Due to the wide scope of the interdisciplinary project, the historical study of the exposome in Belval involved the collection of quantitative and qualitative data from the National Archive of Luxembourg, various local archives (e.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFArticle Synopsis
- Parkinson's disease (PD) is increasingly common due to an aging population, and less than 10% of cases have identifiable genetic causes; environmental factors may have a larger impact.
- A study analyzed plasma and feces samples from PD patients and controls using advanced mass spectrometry and cheminformatics to explore potential chemical connections to PD.
- Findings suggest that fecal metabolites, influenced by gut microbiota, may play a significant role in PD, indicating a potential link between gut health and the disease.