Masaryk University to conduct research into factors affecting health

Brno, where Masaryk University is located, will transform into research hub for the impact of the environment, lifestyle and socio-economic status on human health. Funding worth 40 million euros and creation of a unique living lab in the campus will help the researchers from MU to study the factors affecting human health through a project called CETOCOEN Excellence.

CETOCOEN Excellence officially commenced in mid-January at a ceremony at the university campus. The project boasts a total budget of almost million euros from both European and national funds. The project is an extraordinary achievement of the RECETOX center at the Masaryk University. RECETOX is a research center that studies environmental toxins and their negative impact on human health.

As part of the project, a unique living lab will come to life on the campus in the upcoming years, which will build on international and local partnerships with the mission to enhance sustainability in society and its relationship with the environment. The Masaryk University hopes to further strengthen its ties with leading European research institutions such as University College London, ETH Zurich and the European biobanking research infrastructure through the project, too.

The university is also planning to use this project to advance its partnerships with the city of Brno, the South Moravian Region, university hospitals and other regional institutions and to build a community that will work together for a healthy future for our society.

The main goal of the project is to assess the complex impact of the environment, lifestyle and socio-economic status on human health. Such an ambitious objective can only be reached by using long-term epidemiological and clinical studies involving thousands of people. The international partners of the project will help gather the data available from the long-term CELSPAC study, which has been following the life and health of children born in Brno for almost three decades.

The partners will also participate in further extension of the study and the use of other regional resources so that any new findings will help protect the environment and human health and improve the quality of life, particularly for vulnerable groups.

Furthermore, the project aims to implement changes in the education system to make it more interdisciplinary. For example, RECETOX plans to set up new study programmes that would combine information about the environment and health and focus on mathematical biology and informatics. The research should also generate new applied methods and technologies, help transfer the new findings into legislation and ensure open access to the data obtained.