Microbiome-Aware Ecotoxicology of Organisms: Relevance, Pitfalls, and Challenges

Challenges of Anticoagulant Rodenticides: Resistance and Ecotoxicology

Control of rodent pests worldwide relies heavily on the use of rodenticides. In the 40s’, O’Connor (1948) isolated and first suggested the use of dicoumarol (a naturally occurring substance responsible for the “sweet clover disease” in cattle) as a rodenticide. In the early 50s’, anticoagulant rodenticides (warfarin and later indane-dione derivatives) replaced the acute poisons with great succe...

Fipronil: mechanisms of action on various organisms and future relevance for animal models studies

Because insects had developed resistance to several insecticides, today, neonicotinoids and fiproles are used to combat pests. The difference between this two classes of insecticides is that fipronil acts by inhibiting the receptors of nervous cells, while neonicotinoids perturbs the neuronal transmission. The suitable properties of fipronil make that its use to be more obvious on the pesticide...

Ecotoxicology: The Challenges for the 21st Century

The usual procedures for ecological risk assessment (ERA) have been based for decades on simplified approaches in order to provide basic information on the huge amount of chemicals introduced into the environment. These approaches allowed the development of international regulatory tools capable of substantially reducing the adverse effects on ecosystems in developed countries. Nevertheless, th...

Image Guided SBRT II: Challenges & Pitfalls Dosimetric Challenges & Pitfalls

Microbiome therapeutics - Advances and challenges.

The microbial community that lives on and in the human body exerts a major impact on human health, from metabolism to immunity. In order to leverage the close associations between microbes and their host, development of therapeutics targeting the microbiota has surged in recent years. Here, we discuss current additive and subtractive strategies to manipulate the microbiota, focusing on bacteria...