OCCUPATIONAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH ISSUES IN PORTUGAL

The International Conference on Occupational and Environmental Health (ICOEH 2011) was held in Porto, Portugal, on October 17–19, 2011. This meeting gathered nearly 200 people from 18 different countries of Europe, the Americas, Africa, and Asia, representing research public institutions and industries concerned about the problems associated with the effects on human health of exposure to chemical, physical, and biological agents present in the environment in general, and particularly in the work environment.

About 50 oral presentations distributed in 11 sessions and 8 keynote lecturers were focused on topics related to human biomonitoring in occupational health, analysis of environmental pollutants (industrial, natural or accidental) and their consequences to human health, biomarkers of susceptibility, effects of naturally occurring toxins, immunotoxicity determination, applications of the comet assay in health surveillance, environmental risk factors, and indoor air quality studies in sensitive populations (children and elder people). As an added value, an important number of communications were carried out by young scientists, gaining experience in communication of their research studies.

The intense program stimulated scientific discussion, helped cement old friendships, and stimulated interactions and opportunities for new alliances and future collaborations, all to the benefit of protecting and promoting human health. ICOEH 2011 was held in combination with the Workshop on Biomarkers and Human Exposure to Nanoparticles. Its broad goal was to share knowledge and understanding of nanomaterials toxicity, from basic scientific principles, to technical issues affecting the work of nanomaterials scientists in their laboratories on a day-to-day basis.

Thus, the scientific program covered several of the most important topics in the fields of nanomaterials and human health, namely, human exposure to nanomaterials, genotoxicity, ecotoxicity, and applications of this new form of materials, mainly in biomedicine technologies, which deserved attention not only from research scientists and public health professionals, but also from regulators and producers. ICOEH 2011 was held in the frame of the project Nanotoxicology Link between India and European Nations (NanoLINEN) under the NewINDIGO programme of the European Union and the Department of Biotechnology, Government of India.

This project is a consortium of one Indian and seven European laboratories with the goal of developing robust risk assessment methodologies that will be useful for the community manufacturing and using nanoproducts. It is strengthening the research ties in the upcoming area of nanotoxicology and helping in interdisciplinary collaborative studies to investigate the potential environmental and human health risks associated with nanotechnology.

We thank our sponsors for their important contributions toward the realization of this event, especially the NanoLINEN project, the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology, the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation, and our institutions: the Portuguese National Institute of Health, the Institute of Public Health of Porto University, and the Spanish University of A Coruña.

Lastly, on behalf of the ICOEH Organizing Committee and all the participants in this meeting, we gratefully acknowledge Journal of Toxicology and Environmental Health, represented by Prof. Dr. Sam Kacew, for the opportunity to publish in this issue some of the most outstanding studies presented during ICOEH 2011.