Environmental Specimen Bank (ESB) to Support Researches on Mixture Effects of Chemicals

Abstract

Environmental specimen bank (ESB) is a facility to support sound chemical management by archiving environmental/human samples for long term without changing their chemical/physical properties and providing the opportunity to conduct retrospective analysis in future in order to reveal exposure status to a variety of chemicals and their mixtures. Basic principle, precautions and operation of ESB are summarized with particular attention on the study of mixture effects of chemicals, and examples of further research topics are presented.