Advancing the Collection and Analysis of Blood for PFAS, a Sanguine Journey

The concept of modern biomonitoring took off in the 1960s with the publication of Silent Spring. This book highlighted the risks of indiscriminate pesticide use and furthered the concept of analyzing biological fluids for compounds not naturally produced by the body. These type of chemicals are known as exogenous compounds and the presence in humans indicates active and/or passive migration from the environment into our bodies. As time went on, biomonitoring included the analysis of more and more chemicals and at increasingly lower concentrations in a wider variety of fluids and tissues.

Even prior to Silent Spring, Stanford University determined in 1956 that PFAS (PFOA) binds to human blood cells and ever since then researchers have been focused on tracking PFAS in humans and biota, albeit with a slow start. The US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) started monitoring PFAS in humans as early as the 1999-2000 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) and subsequent surveys have included an even wider suite of PFAS. With ever increasing data concerning the toxicity surrounding PFAS, it is not surprising that the question of risk management is on everyone’s minds and the need for larger scale epidemiological studies is evident. With the advent of self-collection tests, researchers can easily deploy hundreds or thousands of kits to participants to self-collect their blood for PFAS testing, making large scale or long-term studies exponentially more feasible and in a more sustainable fashion.

Eurofins is the leader in PFAS biomonitoring and has brought this remote-testing solution to the industry. As PFAS are unfortunately ubiquitous in the environment and can even be found in lab supplies, HVAC systems and textiles, special quality assurance measures and quality control samples are integral to proper analysis of PFAS in all matrices and especially so with blood due to the small sample volume.  Please join us for a webinar that dives into the modern approach to PFAS analysis in blood. We are excited to partner with you on advancing the knowledge on this topic as there will no doubt be lessons learned from PFAS that we can apply to the next round of exogenous chemicals to find their way into our bodies and our attention.

Original Airdate:  Tuesday, December 12, 2023
 
Length:  60 minutes 

Presenter: Andrew Patterson - Eurofins Environment Testing, Dr. Christopher Higgins - Colorado School of Mines