The activities over the fourth period (01.07.-30.09.2018) of the project No. 1.1.1.2/VIAA/1/16/219 “Development and application of mass spectrometric methods for the occurrence assessment of regulated and emerging mycotoxins in agricultural and dairy products in Latvia, providing contribution to the priority bio-economy sectors” continued several important studies including knowledge transfer actions, public awareness measures and work on the project outcomes.

Main activities and events of the fourth period where as follows:

• After successful 2nd revision cycle, the manuscript entitled “Recent applications of carbonaceous nanosorbents for the analysis of mycotoxins in food by liquid chromatography: a short review”, discussing modern applications of carbonaceous nanosorbents in mycotoxin analysis, was accepted for the publication in the World Mycotoxin Journal (indexed by Scopus, WoS, CiteScore index: 1.7).
• Another scientific article “Occurrence of mycotoxins in herbal teas marketed in Latvia” (WP2) was prepared and submitted for international review in the magazine Mycotoxin Research (Springer publishing house, indexed by SCOPUS and WoS, cit. index 2.8).
• A Latvian patent application No. P18-70 “Detection method for mycotoxins in alcoholic or non-alcoholic beverages of fermented grains or berries” was developed and accepted by the Latvian Patent Office (result of WP1, M 1.6).
• Literature analysis of characteristic and emerging issues of mould produced mycotoxins in blueveined and white-mould cheeses was performed, those studies were used for the purchase of necessary mycotoxin standards in order to develop analytical methods within next project’s stages, the study also included some evaluation of carbonaceous nanosorbents.
• Networking activities included attendance of the networking joint event “Smith of Ideas 2018”, on August 2426 in Lithuania, Klaipeda, which was organised by the Lithuanian Society of Young Researchers and the Latvian Society of the Young Scientists for the knowledge transfer and networking actions between multidisciplinary scientists from the Baltic States, postdoctoral student report of the research results on mycotoxin prevalence in teas during this session.
• Towards dissemination of the results to society, the postdoctoral student organized an educational informative activity “from dark to light” within the European Science Night 2018 (HORIZON 2020) held on 28 September in the BIOR – the activities included presentations of mycotoxin forms, toxicity, prevalence in food, a quiz and lab show including experiments: microbiological evaluation and imitating the methods of chromatographic separation and analysis by analytical methods.

The cooperation institution is The State Education Development Agency (SEDA). Project duration is 36 months. Total costs are 133 806 EUR where 85% is financed by European Regional Development Fund (ERDF). 

The publication was prepared on 27.09.2018.