News in Press-centre

The researchers of Far Eastern Federal University (FEFU) will check the lasting impact of chemicals on living organisms that occur in everyday life. The experiment on laboratory animals will be made by the staff members of the Nanotechnology Research and Education Center, FEFU School of Engineering, under the supervision of Aristides Tsatsakis (Greece), President of the Federation of European Toxicologists & European Societies of Toxicology EUROTOX.

“The experiment will begin in March and will last for the calendar year, in cooperation with the Center for Hygiene and Epidemiology in Primorsky Krai,” explained Kirill Golokhvast, Deputy Director, School of Natural Sciences, and REC Director. “We will check the effect of small doses of various substances that are considered safe under current standards. Their long-term effects on the body—cumulative effect—will be studied. These are pesticides used in crop production, various dyes, cosmetics, and nutritional supplements. We hope that the findings will form the basis for new standards.”

By using laboratory animals, the researchers are going to find out whether small doses of these chemicals are safe for a long-term and permanent administering; whether there are cumulative or combined effects of their impact, including on the offspring. For the comprehensive study of the issue, the research centers in China, Italy, the Republic of Korea, Greece, Romania, and the Islamic Republic of Iran will carry out similar research in parallel.

Under the direction of the world renowned toxicologist Aristides Tsatsakis, with the support of the Russian Science Foundation, a large-scale study of the effect of car exhaust particulate matter to the biocenose of a modern city is conducted in FEFU. Even after the first stage of the research the scientists have come to the conclusion that the new cars are no less dangerous for the environment than the obsolete models with the high mileage and the engine wear and tear. Experiments on rats have confirmed one more grim speculation that carbon nanofibers, which are contained in exhaust in large quantities, do reduce behavioral functions and cognitive activity.