Évaluation de l'impact des perturbateurs endocriniens sur la santé humaine à l'aide de méthodes de pointe

Les perturbateurs endocriniens (PE) sont omniprésents dans notre environnement quotidien, que ce soit dans les aliments et les boissons, les vêtements, les cosmétiques ou les produits d'entretien. Il est désormais clair que ces substances sont responsables de problèmes majeurs de santé publique, notamment l'infertilité, les cancers liés aux hormones, le diabète et l'obésité. L'exposition aux PE pendant la grossesse peut affecter profondément le développement du fœtus, en provoquant des différences dans le développement sexuel (DDS). Ces DDS comprennent une fertilité masculine réduite et l'hypospadia - une malformation du pénis qui est le handicap congénital persistant le plus courant, affectant 1 naissance masculine vivante sur 125. L'hypospadias est généralement associé à d'importantes complications médicales ultérieures. Il est crucial de comprendre comment les PE induisent cette affection, étant donnée l'incidence croissante de la maladie - 1 % par an dans les pays développés -, attribuée à une diffusion croissante des PE au sein de la population. Les méthodes d'évaluation existantes manquent souvent de précision et ne couvrent pas les anomalies subtiles telles que l'hypospadias.

To address this significant public health concern, Dr. Luke Govers and his team have been working with the Environmental Protection Agency, Victoria, to develop fast, sensitive, and high throughput assays to determine the health risks associated with EDCs exposures. Upon completing their research, they have succeeded in designing novel cell and tissue-based methods intended to assess the impacts of chemical exposures. These methods stand out markedly from existing toxicity assays that usually require extensive cohort animal studies and detailed assessments to identify the often-subtle health impacts caused by exposures to EDCs. The preliminary findings using a combination of mouse and human models provided a basis for arguing that Australians’ acceptable level for atrazine (a broadly used herbicide) in water can be a source of reduced fertility and metabolic disorders in men, leading to the reassessment of safe atrazine levels in Australian water by policymakers.

Within his AXA Fellowship, Dr. Luke Govers aspires to develop more automated methods for rapidly assessing chemical impacts and accurately predicting EDC toxicity for human health and the environment. As a specialist in reproductive physiology and genetics, Dr. Govers will apply his innovative in vitro and ex vivo systems to 1) identify panels of genes sitting at the interface of the genome and environment, and 2) develop more sensitive and biologically relevant tests to define the action of EDCs and more importantly, 3) to identify their impacts on male reproductive health in real-time.

Dr. Govers intends to broaden his investigation into a wider variety of EDCs and provide a methodological framework for any future analysis on newly uncovered suspected EDCs. The research outcomes will overcome the knowledge gap regarding EDCs’ impacts on human health and the environment, benefiting different stakeholders, including the industry, government, and civil society.

Through scientific research, Dr. Govers strives to make people more aware of congenital diseases that can emerge due to the impact of EDCs on reproductive systems. He is also determined to drive public health policy by pushing for the regulation of the use of EDCs and their exposure levels, eventually contributing to reducing the health risk to the population.

May 2022