Increased genetic damage found in waste picker women in a landfill in Paraguay measured by comet assay and the micronucleus test.

Cateura landfill located in Asunción-Paraguay is the site of final disposal of tons of garbage of all kinds coming from urban, industrial and commercial areas. Due to an inadequate waste management system, there is a big concern in our country on how it can affect people working within the landfill as waste pickers. When a high risk of exposure affecting workers in their work places is supposed, defining biomarkers of genotoxic damage is obligatory.

Impact of EMS outreach: successful developments in Latin America.

This collection of articles was inspired by the long-standing relationship between the Environmental Mutagen Society and Latin American scientists, and by the program for the 39th Environmental Mutagen Society meeting in Puerto Rico in 2008, which included a symposium featuring "South of the border" scientists. This collection, compiled by Graciela Spivak and Ofelia Olivero, both originally from Argentina, highlights scientists who work in or were trained in Latin American countries and in Puerto Rico in a variety of scientific specialties related to DNA repair and cancer susceptibility, genomic organization and stability, genetic diversity, and environmental contaminants.

Protective activity of cedron (Aloysia triphylla) infusion over genetic damage induced by cisplatin evaluated by the comet assay technique.

Using the comet assay technique, this paper examines the protection from the cisplatin-induced genetic damage in mouse bone marrow cells provided by cedron-leaf infusion. Animals were separated into six groups: (I) untreated, (II) negative control, (III) treated with cedron-leaf infusion (5%), (IV) treated with cisplatin (6 mg/kg b.w.

Production and purification of statins from Pleurotus ostreatus (Basidiomycetes) strains.

Pleurotus ostreatus strains were cultured in liquid medium and on wheat straw. The yields of lovastatin were compared.