MA/MSc Internship for EUGLOH program

Keywords: Tobacco, Prenatal exposure, Systematic Evidence Map

Internship Duration: 30/11/-1 - 30/11/-1

The intern will be involved in the preparation of a systematic evidence map (SEM) that aims to identify and gather published data addressing the genetic and epigenetic effects in the offspring resulting from prenatal human exposure to tobacco smoke (use and/or environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) exposure). This SEM will result in user-friendly database referenced to primary studies providing researchers, health practitioners, policy-makers and funding agencies a useful and accessible tool to recognize knowledge clusters, data gaps, and future research priorities.
A protocol for the SEM has been prepared, describing the steps related to information sources, search strategy, eligibility criteria, study selection, data management and extraction. A pilot study has been carried out to determine the feasibility of the protocol, while fine-tuning all the documentation and procedures.
Now, for the next 1.5 years, a dynamic team composed by researchers, post-doc fellows and students will be involved in running the different stages of the SEM as defined in the protocol.
The intern is expected to be included in the team in the first months of this project and commit in the steps of Title and Abstract (TIAB) and full-text screening that are expected to last for 6-8 months. At the TIAB screening level, the titles and abstracts of all the literature retrieved in the search steps (PubMed, Web of Science, and grey literature) will be analyzed against the eligibility criteria. All those found eligible will then be assessed at the full-text level. At both stages, the task will be carried out independently by two reviewers; discrepant screening results will be resolved by a third reviewer.
Later on, the intern will be involved in the data management and extraction step in which all pertinent data needed to provide a comprehensive synthesis of the key findings regarding the genetic and epigenetic alterations resulting from tobacco exposure during pregnancy will be collected in a consistent way. This will constitute the main outcome of the project with the preparation of a user-friendly database associated to a full codebook. This task is expected to last for 3-5 months.
The intern will co-author the SEM publication, and therefore, even if the internship has ended at the time of manuscript preparation, the team expects his involvement and contribution for that task.
With this project, the intern will acquire significant knowledge on the topic of systematic evidence mapping and reviewing, following the latest recommendations to achieve high standard publication, in a hand-on process. Furthermore, the intern will have the opportunity to develop some soft-skills namely, information management, collaboration, communication, and critical thinking.

Lifestyles and exposure to environmental contaminants across the lifespan are thought to contribute to the development of many chronic diseases and early ageing. In the next years, the research group expects to advance on the characterization of environmental exposures, especially of vulnerable sub-populations such as children and the elderly, understand individual susceptibility and vulnerability to environmental risk factors, and explore behavioral and biological markers that can provide early signals of risk and/or health deterioration in these susceptible populations. For this, the Lab makes use of human biomonitoring methods, more concretely of exposure and early effect biomarkers, etc.

Wolffe, T. A., Vidler, J., Halsall, C., Hunt, N., & Whaley, P. (2020). A survey of systematic evidence mapping practice and the case for knowledge graphs in environmental health and toxicology. Toxicological Sciences, 175(1), 35-49.
Livoreil, B., Glanville, J., Haddaway, N. R., Bayliss, H., Bethel, A., de Lachapelle, F. F., ... & Frampton, G. (2017). Systematic searching for environmental evidence using multiple tools and sources. Environmental Evidence, 6(1), 1-14.
James, K. L., Randall, N. P., & Haddaway, N. R. (2016). A methodology for systematic mapping in environmental sciences. Environmental evidence, 5(1), 1-13.

• Medicine and health sciences, Veterinary science
• Pharmacy, Biology, Physics and Chemistry