8 – 9 April 2014
Information
The Nordic Screening Group, in cooperation with the Nordic Chemical Group and the Marine group, organised a Nordic seminar on Non-target screening in Ystad, Sweden.
The main goals for the seminar were to:
- discuss experience and use for non-target screening,
- present results from ongoing studies and
- discuss potential policy use.
35 people participated in the seminar from various sectors, i.e. both management, the scientific community and consulting. Interesting results from various projects were presented and it can be concluded that the non-target screening analysis is a method with a huge potential, but as yet in its infancy. There are several possibilities for using the method, from studies of waste water treatment efficacy, biomedical research and in emergency cases. Results presented showed that the method already identifies possible new hazardous chemicals. Non-target surveys together with targeted analysis and other ecological surveys, like EDA and toxtests, could point us to chemicals not yet identified with potential environmental harm.
Challenges today for using the non-target screening method are data treatment. The method is not a simple approach, so there is a need for a combined expertise to deal with the challenges. It was pointed out that scientists using non-target screening should make use of the experience from other scientific sectors handling huge data sets, such as in metabolomics and proteomics. Also, there is a need for establishing and agreeing on protocols for non-target analyses, data bases and search motors.
The importance for storing the data from non-target screening in databases was emphasized to facilitate future and further use and analysis of data. The NORMAN project on collecting non-target screening data for priority ranking and possible listing of emerging compounds was presented.
Location
Ystad, Sweden
Files available for download: