News
April 2024: Two postdoc vacancies (2 yrs.) in computational (eco)toxicology available at NIVA to work on PARC - Partnership for the Assessment of Risks from Chemicals and the nationally funded project EXPECT. The work is aimed at developing computational tools for exposure, hazard and environmental risk assessment using heterogenous data, FAIRification and support development of integrated analysis (see vacancy notice for details).
November 2022: Barkha Tiwari has started as postdoc on the EXPECT project. She will develop and use mathematical/statistical models for integrated data analysis. Moreover, Barkha will be involved in the development of a Source to Outcome Predictor and establishing Next Generation Risk Assessments (NGRA) tools. Barkha will be employed on a 3-year position.
October 2022: Erik Myklebust successfully defended his PhD thesis “Ecotoxicological effect prediction using a tailored knowledge graph” at the University of Oslo. Knut Erik Tollefsen was co-supervisor on the thesis, and the NCTP team congratulates Erik with his graduation. Erik is now employed at NORSAR.
June 2022: The 9th Norwegian Environmental Toxicology Symposium (NETS) was hosted in Tromsø, Norway on June 9-10, 2022 (NETS 2022). Members of NIVAs NCTP were actively engaged in the conference with a total of 5 poster and 3 platform presentations. We thank the organisers for the chance to learn, inspire, and be inspired by the many engaged participants.
May 2022: The 32nd annual SETAC Europe meeting (SETAC Europe 2022) and the 21st International Symposium “Pollutant Responses in Marine Organisms” (PRIMO21) were hosted in Copenhagen (May 15-19) and Gothenburg (May 22-25), respectively. Members of NIVAs NCTP were actively engaged in both conferences with a total of 5 poster and 3 platform presentations at SETAC and 6 poster and 1 platform presentation at PRIMO21. We thank the conference organisers for these chances to network, present our newest work, learn, inspire, and be inspired by the many engaged participants.
May 2022: NIVA is a partner in The European Partnership for Chemical Risk Assessment (PARC) that was launched through a kick-off meeting on May 12-13. PARC is a 7-year partnership funded under Horizon Europe. With more than 200 partners from 28 countries and a budget of 400 million Euros, PARC aims to advance research, share knowledge and improve skills in chemical risk assessment. It will thus contribute to supporting the European Union's strategy for sustainability in the field of chemicals, paving the way for the “zero pollution” ambition announced in the European Green Deal. You can read more about it on the PARC website.
May 2022: Niva's project EXPECT is hosting a logo design competition where the winning design will be rewarded with a trip to the beautiful, arctic Svalbard! Visit the EXPECT project webpage and apply now!
April 2022: You Song, as a representative of NCTP, was invited to give a lecture on "Next generation risk assessment - new concepts and approaches" at Uppsala University on April 7, 2022, as part of an MSc course "Toxicology and Risk Assessment". He introduced New Approach Methodologies (NAMs), alternatives to animal testing and adverse outcome pathways (AOPs) to master students in environmental toxicology.
April 2022: Simon Schmid will have his PhD mid-seminar on April 27th. The seminar can be accessed via an open zoom link at NMBU’s website. The title of Simons mid-seminar is “Linking chemical perturbations of chitin synthesis to developmental disorders in crustaceans".
Mars 2022: The OECD/NEA RAD/CHEM AOP Joint Topical Group, co-chaired by Knut Erik Tollefsen has published a summary of their mission statements and objectives for upcoming years in International Journal of Radiation Biology.
February 2022: Prem Chand will conduct his PhD within the SPHERTOX project under the umbrella of NCTP. The title of the PhD is “Hepatic 3D spheroids: The next generation of testing in toxicology” and will be conducted from 01.02.2022 to 31.01.2025.
January 2022: Knut Erik Tollefsen was awarded a Chief Scientist position at NIVA. The purpose of the Chief Scientist program is to strengthen NIVA’s position by supporting and providing opportunities for high-level scientist to develop and promote scientific flagship activities.
January 2022: You Song was promoted to a Researcher 1 position at NIVA. The researcher 1 position corresponds to university professor level.
January 2022: The project EXPECT was funded by the Norwegian Research Council.
January 2022: Wanxin Lai (NMBU, Faculty of Biosciences) successfully defended and finalised her MSc. thesis within bioinformatics. Wanxin have been academically supervised by Torgeir Rhoden Hvidsten (NMBU) and Knut Erik Tollefsen (NIVA/NMBU).
January 2022: Lina Agneberg Dahl has successfully defended her master thesis on "Evaluation of the aquatic bryophyte Fontinalis antipyretica for laboratory and field toxicity studies". Her master project was supervised by Knut Erik Tollefsen (NIVA), Li Xie (NIVA), and Knut Asbjørn Solhaug (NMBU). We also thank Jonny Beyer (NIVA) for his efforts in evaluating the thesis. NCTP congratulate the new Master of Science and wish her best of luck!
May 2021: Simon Schmid has published the world’s first “Adverse Outcome Pathway (AOP) report” in Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry section “Pathways and Predictions”.
April 2021: Li Xie successfully defended his PhD thesis “Single and combined toxicity of gamma and ultraviolet B radiation in the aquatic macrophyte Lemna minor” at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences (NMBU). Li will continue his work on single and multiple stressors as a post doc associated with NCTP.
February 2021: Knut Erik Tollefsen appointed co-chair for the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)/National Environment Agency (NEA) RAD/CHEM Join Adverse Outcome Pathway Working Group (RAD/CHEM AOP-WG). The RAD/CHEM AOP-WG aims to facilitate AOP development for ionizing and non-ionising radiation and multiple stressors.
February 2021: NCTP develops a Source To Outcome Predictor (STOP) to visualize data for exposure, hazard and risk assessments from NIVA RAdb on chemical and non-chemicals stressors and mixtures of these (multiple stressors). The new Graphical User Interphase (GUI) visualizes exposure data and cumulative risk assessments to quantify case-specific exposure scenarios and corresponding cumulative (spatiotemporal) risk and risk driver predictions.
February 2021: You Song awarded a Key Researcher position at NIVA. The purpose with the key researcher program is to ensure NIVA's position by supporting and providing opportunities for scientists to develop expertise at a high scientific level.
January 2021: Jes Jessen Rasmussen joins the NCTP team to strengthen the extension of the STOP framework towards ecological effects and ecosystem function. Jes is an expert in field based ecotoxicology in freshwater systems with main emphasis on quantifying toxicant effects at the community level using e.g. ecological traits and linking these effects to relevant ecosystem functions. He was recently employed at NIVA (DK) in a permanent position as researcher scientist.
January 2021: Scientific paper on the development of a bayesian approach to incorporate spatiotemporal variation and uncertainty limits into modeling of predicted environmental concentrations published in Environmental Science and Technology.
January 2021: NIVA rewarded a Research Council of Norway (RCN) grant for the project “In silico and experimental screening platform for characterizing environmental impact of industry development in the Arctic (EXPECT)” (Marine ecosystems and effects of anthropogenic influence). Scientist from a number of Norwegian, English and US research group will develop next generation hazard and risk (impact) assessment tools for the Arctic ecosystem in this project organized under the RCN program “Marine ecosystems and effects of anthropogenic influence”.
Desember 2020: NCTP joins the prestigious Sapere Aude (Denmarks research foundation) financed project consortium “Revealing “hidden” plastics using Trinal Oviparous Omics Model (TriOOL)” as partner. NIVA will contribute with effect and risk modelling using a suite of tools and approaches developed by NCTP.
Desember 2020: The project “MULTISOURCE“ consisting of 19 partners including NIVA, was granted EU H2020 funds to assess the risk and develop cleaning and reuse solutions for urban storm water. The NIVA scientist Sondre Meland will lead one of the Work packages and NCTP will support the work by retrospective and prospective risk assessment.
November 2020: NCTP team members presented 9 platform and 4 poster presentations at the SETAC North America 41st Annual meeting. Scicon2.
November 2020: NCTP team members presented 3 platform and 6 poster presentations at the 8th Norwegian Environmental Toxicology Symposium (DIGITAL NETS2020), Ocean health in the Anthropocene, Nov. 4-5, 2020.
November 2020: New Adverse Outcome Pathway (AOP) focusing on “Chitin synthesis inhibition leading to mortality” submitted to the AOP knowledge base and repository AOPwiki.
October 2020: Scientific paper on the development of toxicity pathway development for UVB radiation effects in the aquatic macrophyte Lemna minor published in Planta.
October 2020: Scientific paper on the development of world’s first quantitative AOP (qAOP) for Ultraviolet B (UVB) radiation using targeted laboratory tests and automated data mining published in Environmental Science and Technology.
October 2020: Scientific paper on quantification of Adverse Outcome Pathway network by Bayesian regression and Bayesian network modelling published in Integrated Environmental Assessment and Management.
October 2020: The EU H2020 project “Towards effective radiation protection based on improved scientific evidence and social considerations - focus on radon and NORM (RadoNorm)” with active participation of CERAD partners and NCTP is now fully financed and launched. The 5 year RadoNorm project is funded by the EU radiation protection research program (EURATOM) and the research Council of Norway, and will support good management and handling of Radon and other naturally occurring radioactive materials (NORM).
September 2020: NIVA and NCTP join the Environment Care Consortium (ECC), a collaborative team of over 100 science, legal and public health experts & students that confronts the global health and justice problems caused by pollution. ECC’s solution is 'action research' that uses precision toxicology and environmental governance to reduce the burden of pollution, based on vastly improved opportunities for effective recourse.
August 2020: NIVA and NCTP staff teams up with the newly established Centre for Rescue of Earth Materials and Waste in the Circular Economy (EarthresQue), a Research Council of Norway funded Centre for Research-based Innovation (SFI). EarthresQue aims at becoming a national and internationally leading research cluster for material research, technological development, system innovation and governance framework for sustainable handling and treatment of waste and earth materials.
August 2020: NCTP team members organize the short course “FMI330 Effect and Biomarker Methods in Toxicology” at Norwegian University of Life Sciences, NMBU.
July 2020: Scientific paper linking epigenetic, transcriptional and phenotypic responses in Daphnia magna exposed to low-level ionizing radiation published in Environmental Research
June 2020: Lina Agneberg Dahl joins the NCTP team as a Msc. student to develop willow moss (Fontinalis antipyretica) as a field effect monitoring species for pesticides.
June 2020: NCTP welcomes new member of the team as Simon Schmid is hired as a PhD scholar in the European Training Network Prorisk. Simon’s PhD will focusing on developing quantitative AOPs for chitin-synthesis inhibitors in arthropods and in particular crustaceans.
May 2020: Close to 20 of NCTPs work presented at the SETAC SciCon (Virtual) annual conference. A number of NCTP scientists presented novel findings as platform and oral presentations during the virtual conference.
April 2020: Scientific paper covering the development and evaluation of an KNIME workflow to support in silico identification of Ecdysone receptor binders published in Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry.
April 2020: NCTP launches version 1.2 of NIVA RAdb for Internal testing and external collaboration. Version 1.2 of NIVAs Risk Assessment database, NIVA RAdb launched for internal testing and external collaboration in order to evaluate functionality and develop new analytical front end analysis tools. Pls. contact Dr. Knut Erik Tollefsen if you are interested in contribute to developing the toolbox.
March 2020: Scientific paper characterizing the toxicity pathway and developing a putative AOP for low-dose gamma radiation in Daphnia magna published in Sci. Total Environ.
February 2020: NCTP secures a new national project on the Cumulative Risk Assessment (CRA) entitled “Risikovurdering av komplekse blandinger av plantevernmidler i miljøet med fokus på norske forhold“ from “Handlingsplan for bærekraftigbruk av plantevernmidler (2020-)”.
January 2020: The European Training Network (ETN) “Prorisk” is funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No. 859891 (MSCA-ETN).
Desember 2019: Dr. You Song acquires a Young Researcher Talent (YRT) project at Research Council of Norway (RCN). NCTP researcher You Song secures the prestigious RCN award for Young Researcher Talents (YRT) to support the work entitled “Quantitative Adverse Outcome Pathway Assisted Risk Assessment of Mitochondrial Toxicants (RiskAOP)”. The project aims to developing Adverse Outcome Pathway (AOPs) and quantitative AOPs to support new tools for assisting different regulatory needs.
November 2019: Version 1.2 of NIVA's Risk Assessment database (RAdb) launched for testing and assessment by internal users.
May 2019: NCTP researcher actively disseminating science in the SETAC Europe 29th Annual Meeting, May 26-30, 2019 (Helsinki, Finland) in 13 different platform and poster presentations.
May 2019: A selection of NCTP's work were disseminated at the PRIMO20 conference in Charleston, SC, USA. Oral presentations included NCTP’s work on endocrine disruption in crustaceans («Endocrine Disruption in crustaceans – a “new” environmental challenge?»), use of NIVA RAdb to decipher cumulative hazard and risk of complex mixtures («AOP-informed Cumulative Hazard and Risk Assessment - A conceptual approach to predict impact of complex mixtures»), and a presentation on how to identify archetypical mixtures in complex exposure scenarios («Bridging the gap between chemical fingerprinting and site-specific hazard and risk assessment»). More details can be found under presentations.
April 2019: To further disseminate the multiple stressor (NSFT prize-winning) paper mentioned above, pop-sci articles has been published in two websites that reaches out to a broad audience. The article «It is all in the genes: Decoding the effects of multiple stressors» has been published in Science Nordic, an English-language source for science news from the Nordic countries, and AlphaGalileo, a trusted independent business to business service for the research and media communities.
February 2019: A new article with several authors from NIVA is now available: "Repeatability and reproducibility of the RTgill-W1 cell line assay for predicting fish acute toxicity". This paper is a result of many years of international ring trials for the development of a new standardized test method for evaluating fish cytoxicity. Its purpose is to provide additional information on the potential effects of chemicals to fish and can be used in a weight of evidence approach to avoid the use of juvenile fish for acute ecotoxicity assessments. The outcome of this project is a new ISO standard, that was led by NIVA and EAWAG, and which was officially accepted by ISO in February 2019.
January 2019: NIVA researcher You Song was awarded NIVA’s publication price 2018 for his article "Deciphering the combined effects of environmental stressors on gene transcription: a conceptual approach". The article was published in Environmental Science and Technology.
December 2018: The jury at Norsk Selskap for Farmakologi og Toksikologi (NSFT) has selected NIVA researcher You Song's article "Deciphering the combined effects of environmental stressors on gene transcription: a conceptual approach" as the best toxicology paper in 2018 in Norway. Congratulations!
November 2018: NCTP representative Knut Erik Tollefsen participates in public debate about chemical elements and presentation of two new books on the subject at NMBU “Vitenparken”.
October 2018: NCTP releases chemspiderapi, the first R package for accessing ChemSpider’s new API services. NCTP has released chemspiderapi, the first open access R package providing full functionality for ChemSpider’s new API web services. With chemspiderapi, NCTP provides a ready-to-use solution for hundreds of active users of ChemSpider’s API web services. The package that will be distributed through the Comprehensive R Archive Network (CRAN) once unit testing is finalized. Additionally, onboarding at the rOpenSci initiative is planned, where it will undergo further thorough peer review.