IARC launches the SYNERGY website

IARC is pleased to launch the SYNERGY website. This website will keep scientists and the public informed about SYNERGY — a pooling project of case–control studies in Europe and North America to study joint effects of occupational lung carcinogens and smoking. The SYNERGY project is funded by the German Social Accident Insurance (DGUV), and is coordinated by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), the Institute for Prevention and Occupational Medicine of the DGUV, Institute of the Ruhr-University Bochum (IPA), and the Institute for Risk Assessment Sciences at Utrecht University (IRAS). The SYNERGY project includes data on lifetime occupational and smoking history for more than 13 000 cases and 16 000 controls. A quantitative data driven job–exposure matrix (SYNJEM) based on job title, industry, region and time period will be available in early 2011. Each subject in the SYNERGY population, for each working year, will be assigned a specific exposure level for PAH, asbestos, crystalline silica, chromium and nickel. Several additional research proposals using the SYNERGY data are underway in the participating research groups.
Visit the SYNERGY website