Helmholtz International Laboratory aeroHEALTH - Impact of Atmospheric Aerosols on Human Health

The German-Israeli Helmholtz International Laboratory aeroHEALTH (www.aeroHEALTH.eu) strives to understand the biological and health effects of atmospheric aerosols mechanistically, combining information on primary emissions as well as secondary and ambient aerosols. Atmospheric processing (“aging”) under atmospheric relevant conditions of biogenic and anthropogenic emissions are simulated on short and long-term scales to connect laboratory observations with the observed health impacts from field experiments.

aeroHEALTH is based on the "Virtual Helmholtz Institute of Complex Molecular Systems in Environmental Health" (HICE), which investigates the chemical and biological effects of primary combustion emissions. Under real atmospheric conditions, these aerosol emissions are rapidly converted by complex multiphase chemistry, which alters the physicochemical properties. The toxicological potential remains unclear. The research on this highly complex environmental issue benefits from the expertise and contributions of various disciplines, including analytical chemistry, physics, biochemistry, biology, medicine, engineering, statistics and computer science. The aeroHEALTH consortium consists of leading groups of two Helmholtz institutes in Germany and the Weizmann Institute for Science in Israel with associated international partners from the academic and commercial sector, combining complementary expertise and cutting-edge technology. AeroHEALTH uses the Helmholtz network (Comprehensive Molecular Analytics (CMA) and Institutte of Computational Biology (ICB) at Helmholtz Centre Munich and Forschungszentrum Jülich (FZJ)) and strengthens its strategic partnership with the Weizmann Institute of Science (WIS).