In cooperation with foreign partners Ukrainian researchers helped our country in the first, most difficult months of the war and continue helping today. Dr. Halyna Falfushinska, Vice-Rector for Research Work and International Cooperation of Ternopil Volodymyr Hnatiuk National Pedagogical University, joined this assistance.
Together with proven partners from Poznan University of Medical Sciences, Dr. Halyna organized delivery of humanitarian cargo for hospitals in Ternopil, Rivne, Zhytomyr, Vinnytsia, and Kyiv. With the help of crowdfunding platforms, together with the Polish Insurance Society and the Polish Medical Society, they collected funds for medical and hygiene products, bought all the necessary goods and brought them to Ukraine.
“Just for Rivne and Kyiv we brought 40,000 EUR worth medical supplies and dressing materials,” the scientist recalls. “It was important for us not only to collect more medicines, hydrogel bandages, tourniquets, but also deliver them to the right place, directly where they are needed.”
The biologist told about the life of Ukrainian researchers in the first weeks of the russian invasion, volunteering, and Polish-Ukrainian cooperation in an article for the Polish media. In particular, she described how Polish researchers under the slogan ‘Our nations are similar, and we have the same blood’ organized a blood collection for the wounded Ukrainians.
Apart from volunteering, Dr. Falfushinska continued her research work. She admits: during the first months she started working at 6 A.M. and finished at 10 P.M.
We asked Dr. Halyna about the work on the project ‘Development of the methodology of integrated assessment of the biosafety of the environment polluting with pesticides for target and non-target organisms’, which received funding from the NRFU and was supposed to be completed in 2022. Why is this topic important? What did the project team manage to do before the start of the full-scale war?
The researcher explained that knowledge about environmental pollution is necessary to preserve people’s health. Today, the population of the planet is growing rapidly, and the need for agricultural products is also growing. In order to save crops from pests and diseases, farmers (both large holdings and small households) widely use herbicides, insecticides and other chemicals.
“If you ask any seller of herbicides and pesticides about how sales are going, they will answer that it is great,” says the project PI. “People realized that it is much easier to treat the garden with herbicides than to pull weeds by hand. And to treat it with insecticides so that pests do not destroy it. Of course, all this happens without any control, ‘by eye’…”
Then all these chemicals are washed into the soil and, together with sewage, full inro water bodies. By the way, according to forecasts, intensive use of pesticides in the near future will lead to contamination of 61% of agricultural land around the world.
And if do some types of pollution (from work of light and heavy industry enterprises, etc.) people have learned to evaluate, predict and control, pollution from the use of pesticides usually remains uncontrolled.
“Who can control a grannie who buys pesticides from uncertified sellers and uses them in her garden? No one,” says the biologist. “There are many such grannies, and not only in Ukraine. And not only grannies. By the way, among of the leaders in the use of pesticides (and environmental pollution) are China and the United States of America. In these countries pesticides are used not only for treatment of agricultural crops, but also for maintenance of parks and lawns.”
The USA, for example, was one of the leaders in the use of atrizin for corn treating. This herbicide is a carcinogen and causes significant endocrine disruption. The negative consequences of its use can be remote and appear in several generations (both in humans and in animals). In many countries, the herbicide was replaced by another one – terbuthylazine, which is being investigated by the project team. “Terbuthylazine belongs to the group of tetrazine pesticides, like atrazine. Unfortunately, there are no official warnings about potential harm to non-target organisms (humans and animals). But the harm is considerable! Even in the smallest (micro- and nanomolar) amounts, terbuthylazine causes adverse effects, including endocrine disruption, immunotoxicity, and oxidative stress. People should know about it!”, the researcher emphasized.
Dr. Falfushinska said that it is possible to find harmful substances in completely unexpected goods, in particular, in personal hygiene products. For example, the cheap antibacterial agent triclosan (prohibited for use) and/or triclocarban is contained in “Safeguard” soap, which until recently was very popular in Ukraine. Meanwhile, triclosan and triclocarban are recognized carcinogens that cause serious endocrine disruption, inflammation, and allergic reactions. And when it gets into water bodies, triclosan turns into poisonous dioxins.
Before the start of the war, the researchers managed to complete 80% of the work planned, published four scientific articles in Q1 journals and three articles in Q3 – Q4 journals. The results of the project were also presented at the SGEM international conference in Bulgaria in 2021 (the materials of the conference published in a Scopus-indexed publication). They are working on another paper now. Implementation of the project with the NRFU grant finding became a good basis for preparing a joint project proposal with partners from the University of Natural Sciences and Humanities in Częstochowa (Poland).
The project team continues its research and looking forward to the renewal of funding.
“We have to work and accelerate our victory,” concluded Dr. Halyna Falfushinska. “I hope that international cooperation and support will help Ukrainian universities and research institutions to withstand during the war.”
Svitlana GALATA
