Advancing Mechanistic Ecotoxicology With Lipidomics
Chemist Diana Ilyaskina's research focused on how everyday chemicals, such as pesticides and pharmaceuticals, affect living organisms long before visible damage occurs, such as death or reproductive failure.
Traditional safety tests often miss these early warning signs. Ilyaskina's research focused on small, but ecologically important, soil-dwelling and freshwater animals, including springtails and pond snails. Changes in the organisms were studied using advanced chemical analysis methods that track lipids and other small molecules essential for energy, growth, reproduction, and development. The main goal was to determine whether these early internal changes could explain later problems such as reduced reproduction or stunted development. Overall, the research aimed to improve the risk assessment of chemicals by making environmental protection more sensitive, predictive, and better adapted to the increasing number of chemicals in the environment.
Consequences already at low concentrations
Ilyaskina's research demonstrates that chemicals can affect animals even at the low concentrations often found in the environment, without immediately causing death. Although the exposed animals often appeared healthy, significant changes were already occurring in their bodies, affecting energy expenditure, cell structure, and reproduction. These early internal changes helped explain why reduced reproduction or disrupted development later became apparent at the population level. The results also showed that different species can respond differently to the same chemical, depending on their biology and habitat. Importantly, this approach can be used to rapidly screen new chemical compounds and to better assess the risks of chemicals already present in the environment, allowing harmful effects to be identified before long-term damage occurs.
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