Concerted Uranium Research In Europe (Cure): Building A Collaborative Research Protocol Integrating Epidemiology, Dosimetry And Radiobiology.

Introduction The health effects of chronic exposure to uranium are not well known. Experimental studies have reported impairments of cerebral function, genotoxic, nephrotoxic and other biological effects, but the implications of these findings to human health are not clear. Most epidemiological studies carried out to date have major limitations (e.g.: dosimetry, power). New studies making use of modern biology approaches and enhanced epidemiological datasets are needed to have a higher potential to improve the characterization of the biological and health effects of uranium exposure. Methods CURE (Concerted Uranium Research in Europe) was an 18-month concerted action supported by the European Commission Network of Excellence DoReMi (http://www.doremi-noe.net/), involving 9 European Institutes. It aimed to elaborate a collaborative research project on the biological and health effects of uranium contamination, integrating epidemiology, biology and dosimetry. A work-package was dedicated to each of these disciplines with strong interactions, and a further working group on uncertainty was constituted. Results Protocols were developed for pooled analyses of existing cohorts of uranium miners (40,000) and uranium processing workers (40,000) in Belgium, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, and the United Kingdom. To allow for the study of dose-response relationships, protocols were developed to calculate organ doses due to uranium exposure using state-of-the art dosimetric methods. Standardized protocols were developed for the measurement of several biomarkers relevant to supposed uranium effects in order to carry out pilot molecular epidemiology studies in sub-cohorts. Methods were proposed to estimate the impacts of uncertainties at several steps of the project. Conclusions Based on the developed CURE protocols, a multidisciplinary research project will be proposed to improve the characterization of the biological and health effects associated with uranium exposure.