6th Environmental Dialogue: In the Cloud of Chemicals: Environmental Influences and Our Health

We are continuously exposed to a wide range of environmental chemicals via air, water, cosmetics and, above all, our food. Our health is affected in many ways by pesticides, food contaminants, packaging chemicals, foreign oestrogens, drug residues and other molecular compounds that we ingest. Current research aims to investigate the exposome, i.e. the totality of environmental influences since birth: The decoding of the exposome could lead to a completely new understanding of diseases such as cancer or neurodegenerative diseases. The combined effect of various environmental substances in our body plays a major role in this regard. How much does the dynamic chemical cloud in which we live shape us? What new approaches are emerging in medicine, especially in the area of personalised prevention? How should we deal with new pollutants? And how can we actually live a healthy life?

Welcome

• Thilo Hofmann, Head of the Environmental Sciences Research Network at the University of Vienna and Regina Hitzenberger, ViceRector of the University of Vienna

Keynote: On the Tracks of the Exposome

• Benedikt Warth, bioanalytical chemist and associated professor at the University of Vienna

Panel Discussion

• Claudia Gundacker, medical ecologist and associate professor at the Medical University of Vienna
• Thomas Jakl, chemical policy and biocides, Head of Department of the Federal Ministry for Sustainability and Tourism
• Doris Marko, food toxicologist and professor at the University of Vienna
• Benedikt Warth, bioanalytical chemist and associate professor at the University of Vienna
• Moderator: Marlene Nowotny, science editor Ö1 radio