Human Exposure to Emerging Contaminants: Pathways, Biomarkers, Characteristics, and Health Risks

Dear Colleagues,

Emerging contaminants, including persistent organic pollutants (POPs), endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs), antibiotics (ABX), and microplastics (MPs), have aroused significant concern across the globe due to their potential acute and chronic toxicity. The widespread occurrence of emerging contaminants in the environment has triggered extensive research on human exposure to emerging contaminants, which attempts to elucidate their transport from environmental compartments to the human body and the associated health risks. Although human exposure data for some typical emerging contaminants, such as per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs), are becoming increasingly complete, there is still much room for research on most emerging contaminants, such as human exposure pathways, biomarkers in human specimens, internal exposure characteristics, and health risk assessments. As such, this Special Issue aims to provide a platform for researchers and practitioners to disseminate their new findings and understandings concerning human exposure to emerging contaminants. The topics may include but are not limited to:

1. Targeted analysis and non-targeted screening of emerging contaminants to which the human body is exposed;
2. Exposure pathways of emerging contaminants from outside environments to inner bodies;
3. Identification of biomarkers possessing repeatability and individual variation within acceptable limits;
4. Investigation of internal exposure characteristics by human biomonitoring;
5. Exploration of the migration and transformation in the human body and the permeability of various human barriers;
6. Use of models to figure out dose–response relationships;
7. Assessment of the health risks through toxicological and epidemiological investigations.

We warmly welcome contributions from the experts and the scholars all over the world.

Dr. Bibai Du
Dr. Dan Luo
Guest Editors

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