Over the past several decades, human fertility rates have decreased while the incidence of female reproductive disorders has increased. A multitude of factors contribute to the decline of female fertility and reproductive health, including genetics, lifestyle, socioeconomic status, BMI, and age. However, a growing body of evidence suggests that endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs) are an important contributor.
In this EDC Strategies Partnership webinar, Dr. Anne-Simone Parent, a researcher from the MERLON project, presented the findings from their recent review paper, "Endocrine-disrupting chemicals and female reproductive health: A growing concern." This highlights how EDCs impact the development of female reproductive disorders and the challenges behind proving the causality between exposure and human disease manifestation. The female reproductive disorders include abnormal puberty, impaired fertility, premature menopause or polycystic ovarian syndrome. The webinar was moderated by Génon Jensen, Executive Director, Health and Environment Alliance (HEAL).
About MERLON: The MERLON project - an EU funded research initiative, brings together world-leading experts from 12 partner institutions across Europe to develop and improve tools to better identify and ultimately regulate harmful endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs). It focuses on associations between exposure to endocrine disrupting chemicals and the impaired sexual development and reproductive functions in humans. It also works on the transition to applying new approach methodologies (NAMs), a new paradigm of chemical testing that aims to reduce our reliance on animals for toxicity testing.
Featured Speaker
Anne-Simone Parent received her medical degree and PhD in Biomedical Science from the University of Liège, Belgium. After a three-year postdoctoral stay in SR Ojeda’s laboratory at Oregon Health and Science University, where she studied the molecular determinants of the hypothalamic control of puberty, she became an Associate Researcher at the Belgian National Foundation for Research. Currently, AS Parent is a Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Liège, Belgium and a Principal Investigator at GIGA-Neurosciences, University of Liège. Being a pediatric endocrinologist, her studies have always focused on bridging clinical and laboratory research. For the last 15 years, the group has developed models to study the effects of endocrine disrupting chemicals on the central nervous system and focuses on their effects on the hypothalamic control of puberty and reproduction and on hippocampus development. She is the Chair of the Endocrine Society European Union EDC Task Force.