NIB 2017

Quality
of Environment
and Human
Health are
Inseparable
Department
for Genetic
Toxicology and
Cancer Biology
Zarodek cebrice pod mikroskopom (foto: Tina Eleršek). Zebrafish embryo under a microscope (Photo: Tina Eleršek).
Topic
Areas
Genetic toxicology research includes:
molecular mechanisms of genotoxicity of environmental
and foodborne contaminants;
development of new in vitro test systems in genetic
toxicology.
Cancer biology research includes:
brain tumor research – glioma initiation, glioblastoma
stem cells and their role in progression and resistance
to therapy;
mechanisms of proteolytic enzymes‘ functioning in the
pathobiology of tumor progression;
mesenchymal stem cells as part of the tumor microenvironment
and as vectors for drug delivery.
Environmental basic and applied research includes:
studies and development of methods for surveillance
and prevention of toxic cyanobacterial blooming;
ecotoxicological studies of aquatic pollution.
In all these fields we collaborate with partners from the
industry, governmental bodies and agencies, research institutes,
universities and higher education organizations.
Main
Achievements
in 2017
In 2017, we successfully completed the project “HOPE”
that was conducted in collaboration with the team of
Prof. Dr Siegfried Knasmüller from Medical University Vienna
and was financed by ARRS (J1-6730) and the Austrian
Science Fund (FWF). Current legislation requires
genotoxicity testing of newly developed chemicals and
of compounds such as drugs, cosmetics, food and feed
additives, pesticides etc. The guidelines for genotoxicity
testing require in the first stage a battery of in vitro
tests with bacteria and mammalian cells, and when positive
results are obtained follow-up experiments with
rodents are conducted. According to the proposed strategy
of the European Union Reference Laboratory for
Alternatives to Animal Testing (EURL ECVAM) to “Avoid
and Reduce Animal Use in Genotoxicity” a reduction of
animals in genotoxicity/carcinogenicity testing can be
achieved by the development of more reliable in vitro
tests so that fewer in vivo follow-up tests are necessary,
which was the aim of the project. The cell lines that
are currently used in routine genotoxicity testing lack
metabolic enzymes, which is considered to be one of the
main reasons for unreliable results, which later have to
be confirmed by in vivo experiments with rodents. The
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