The López Piñero Institute for the History of Medicine and Science (joint centre of CSIC and the University of Valencia), based at the Palau de Cerveró, and the UVEG organise the round table Medi Ambient i salut infantil: el projecte INMA (The Environment and Child Health: INMA project) that will take place on next Tuesday 28 January, at 18:00, in the conference room of this centre. The activity, which is included in the film season “Toxic Environments”, has been coordinated by Ximo Guillem, trainee lecturer and doctor in Biology (University of Valencia), and Ferran Ballester, Sabrina Llop and María José López Espinosa, lecturers at the Fundación para el Fomento de la Investigación Sanitaria y Biomédica (Foundation for the Promotion of Health and Biomedical Research, FISABIO, CIBERESP. University of Valencia). The INMA project is a multicentre study which aims to study the effects of environmental pollution and diet on the child development and health in different cities of Spain. The researchers present the main features of the project, as well as the results obtained in relation to prenatal exposure to environmental pollutants and diet. The round table will be formed by Ferran Ballester, María José López-Espinosa and Sabrina Llop. The first of them, Ferran Ballester, graduated in Medicine from the University of Valencia in 1980. Specialist in Family and Community Medicine and in Preventive Medicine and Public Health, Master in Public Health from the Universitat de Valencia (1990) and Doctor in Medicine from the University of Alicante (1995).

He is currently a tenured university professor at the University of Valencia and coordinator of Health and Environment Area in the Foundation for Research in Health and Biomedicine of the Valencian Community (FISABIO). His main research interests are the study of exposure to air pollution, meteorology and its relation to health, as well as the relation between early exposure to environmental factors and the health of children. In this context the INMA project, which began in 2003, is developed where Dr Ballester is coordinator for Valencian cohort. The second researcher, Maria José López-Espinosa, is a specialized epidemiologist in the study of the effects on children’s health from exposure to hormonally active chemicals (endocrine disruptors), such as organochlorinated, polybrominated and perfluorinated compounds. He has participated in the study of hormonal, reproductive and neurological effects of exposure to such chemicals. Since 2000, he has worked in the INMA Granada and Valencia cohorts. One of the objectives of the INMA study is to evaluate the effects of the prenatal and postnatal exposure to pollutants in fetal and childhood development. He has also worked at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine on a project on perfluorinated compounds exposure in the drinking water of a town near a chemical plant in U.S. At this moment, he works on issues related to the INMA cohort in the Foundation for the Promotion of Health and Biomedical Research of the Valencian Community, FISABIO-Salud Pública. Finally, Sabrina Llop is a biologist from the University of Valencia and a Doctorate in Public Health from the University Miguel Hernández. As an expert epidemiologist in exposure assessment, she has specialized in the study of exposure to environmental pollutants and determining factors during pregnancy and childhood. Since 2004, she collaborates in the Valencian cohort of the INMA project. She has coordinated the field work at different stages of study and she has been involved in researching the effects of environmental exposure to toxics in reproductive health and the cognitive development of children. She currently works in the Environment and Health Area for the promotion of Health and Biomedical Research of the Valencian Community, FISABIO.