CREAL. Centre for research in environmental epidemiology

CREAL co-director, Manolis Kogevinas, talked last 27th October with a score of scientific journalists from the European Union of Science Journalists Associations (EUSJA) who were visiting several research institutions from Catalonia.

On October 26 the CREAL researcher, David Rojas, participated in the symposium "Towards a healthy and safe mobility" in order to explain the interaction between health and mobility in transport, beyond traffic accidents.

Researchers from the Centre for Research in Environmental Epidemiology (CREAL), Research Institute of Hospital del Mar, the National Cancer Research Centre (CNIO) and U.S. National Cancer Institute have identified three new genetic factors predisposing to cancer urinary bladder.

This morning the director of CREAL, Josep M Antó, participated in the press conference of the exhibition "Air. Respiration and Child Health” which will be open from October 15, 2010 to October 14, 2011 at Cosmocaixa. Jordi Sunyer, codirector of the center, gave scientific advice.

CREAL will be hosting on 14 and 15 October representatives of all research centers involved in the project MCC-Spain which study the causes of various cancers (colorectal, breast, stomach, prostate and chronic lymphocytic leukemia). The meeting of the study, coordinated by Dr. Manolis Kogevinas, co-director CREAL, and Marina Pollan, head of Cancer Epidemiology Service (Instituto de Salud Carlos), will be the first scientific group meeting in which they organize the data of the approximately 4,000 cases of cancer collected until now as well as over 2,000 population controls.

Organised by the Fundació Roger Torné, in collaboration with the Obra Social Fundació 'la Caixa' and the Centre for Research in Environmental Epidemiology (CREAL), the holding of this conference, Roger Torné Foundation "aims to provide a multidisciplinary view, based on a reflective attitude and supported by the results of multiple studies conducted around the world, on the effect of climate change on human health, particularly that of children ", as can be read on site organizer of this meeting.

On Saturday 2 October CREAL participated for the first time on visits carried out during the Open Day at the Barcelona Biomedical Research Park. The visits through the building, which were a success in being exhausted in a few hours, had two stops or "stations" in various units or research centers.

On 18 September the CREAL director, J M Antó, received the Congress Chair Award of the European Respiratory Society (ERS) during the congress of this organization. This ERS recognition awards his scientific contribution as well as his leadership and collaboration in research projects.

Babies whose mothers which have relatively high levels of chemicals such as DDE (a byproduct of the pesticide DDT) in blood, are more likely to experience accelerated growth during the first 6 months life as well as having a body mass index (BMI) higher at 14 months. That is, these children have a higher risk of overweight, as he concluded a study by the Centre for Research in Environmental Epidemiology (Creal) in Barcelona.

All members of TAPAS project met last two days to present the different characteristics of cities participating: Barcelona, Basel, Copenhagen, Paris, Prague and Warsaw.