Additional information

Alba Jimeno is an emerging Principal Investigator (PI). She leads the EXPRESEO project (PI23/01524), funded under the AES2023 call by the Carlos III Health Institute. She is affiliated with the BIODONOSTIA Health Research Institute, working in the area of Epidemiology and Public Health, and is part of the Environmental Epidemiology Group. She is also a member of the Environmental Epidemiology Research Group at the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU). Her research focuses on environmental toxicology and environmental epidemiology, including:

• Determining and characterizing properties that increase environmental and health risks of manufactured nanomaterials, depending on their surface functionalization, size, and physicochemical structure.

• Advancing the understanding of the "Safe by Design" approach for manufactured nanomaterials used in the imaging biotechnology industry (nanotoxicology), in its various forms.

• Studying the bioavailability, internalization rate, intracellular localization, and biokinetic properties of metal nanoparticles and PVP (polyvinylpyrrolidone) as a compound vector, developed for biomedical applications (nanomedicine).

• Developing and validating new in vitro and in vivo models for screening the effects of manufactured nanomaterials, including the use of Schmidtea mediterranea.

As part of her doctoral thesis, within the NanoReTox project, she contributed to the preparation of a joint document by the OECD Working Party on Manufactured Nanomaterials, providing recommendations for updating OECD guidelines on toxicological testing for nanomaterials.

In the field of epidemiology and cohort studies, she serves as a task leader in PARC (Partnership for the Risk Assessment of Chemicals), participating through UPV/EHU with a new cross-sectional cohort study in the Basque Country. PARC, led by the French health agency, is a European Union research and innovation partnership aimed at supporting national and EU authorities in chemical risk assessment and management by providing new data, knowledge, methods, networks, and skills to address current, emerging, and novel challenges in chemical safety. Her research also emphasizes the prenatal exposome, including air quality and endocrine system impacts, as well as prenatal exposure to endocrine disruptors and their effects on health. Additionally, she assesses genetic alteration markers such as DNA methylation and telomere length—key indicators for designing public health policies aimed at extending healthy life expectancy, given their significant impact on aging and its quality.

In collaboration with the Biodonostia research group, she is involved in developing a model to monitor the health impact of urban waste incinerators, including the follow-up of two facilities (Bilbao and Donostia) regarding the evolution of dioxins and related compounds, and their effects on food safety, reproductive health, and morbidity and mortality. She has served as a national expert reviewer for the HBM4EU-ISCIII initiative regarding recommended values for deltamethrin. She also co-leads the INMA-Gipuzkoa working group on the epigenetic analysis of prenatal exposures to PFAS and phenols, and DNA methylation in cord blood, with a focus on neurodevelopment.