Helsinki, Finland
08/09/2019 – 11/09/2019
Background
ILSI Europe's Sessions and Continuing Education Course (CEC) were jointly organised by four Food Safety Task Forces:
- Alternatives to Animal Testing in Food Safety, Nutrition and Efficacy Studies Task Force (AAT TF)
- New Approaches to Chemical Risk Assessment for Foods and Food Ingredients Task Force (CRA TF)
- Packaging Materials Task Force (PM)
- Threshold of Toxicological Concern Task Force (TTC TF)
Booth
ILSI Europe had a booth in the Exhibitor area Meet us booth #56.
Continuing Education Courses (CEC): Real World Safety Assessments for Data-Poor Products: How to Approach Data Gaps
Finlandia Hall - CEC 4
Sunday, 8 September 2019
10:30 - 16:00
Background and Objectives
Toxicology textbooks and guidelines typically teach safety assessment based on data-rich examples. But when evaluating environmental materials or real-world products, typically data are lacking for one or several substances. The CEC intended to provide an overview of current non-animal methods to deal with data gaps in hazard and exposure assessment. The course introduced the concept, including its boundaries. In cases where the substance to be assessed is available in sufficient quantities, in vitro assays are available for a range of endpoints. The goals of this course are as follows:
• For participants to become aware of the analytical and safety assessment challenges
• Discuss various computational toxicity models relating to real world safety assessment.
• To provide an overview on how to indicate which assays may be suitable for screening aspects versus in a regulatory context, and also for which areas of toxicology in vitro assays are currently lacking.
Chair
Dr Heli Miriam Hollnagel (Dow Europe, CH)
Products Requiring Safety Assessments: Focus on Non-Intentionally Added Substances (NIAS)
Dr Thomas Gude (SQTS, CH)
Quantitative Structure-Activity Relationship (QSAR) and Grouping Approaches such as Read-Across and Category Formation
Prof. Mark Cronin (Liverpool John Moores University, UK)
Thresholds of Toxicological Concern
Dr Heli Miriam Hollnagel (Dow Europe, CH)
In vitro assays: Validated Assays for Regulatory Purpose Versus Explorative Assays for Research & Development and High Throughput
Dr Manfred Tacker (University of Applied Sciences Vienna, AT)
Data Sources for Exposure Assessment
Dr Dudzina Tatsiana (ExxonMobil Biomedical Science Inc., BE)
Challenges of Non-Animal Approaches for Food Safety: from Inception to Application
Finlandia Hall – Session 11
Tuesday, 10 September 2019
10:30 - 12:30
Background and Objectives
Substantial advances are being made in the development of non-animal methods to assess the toxicity and beneficial effects (QSARs, high content analysis using omics, imaging models, etc). This session focused on the food sector (food and food ingredients) and recent advances in the application in safety assessment for this industry sector. In this session, the application of such methods and frameworks for food safety assessment was discussed as general concepts but also showing case studies. In contrast to many industrial chemicals, the absence of any biological effect of such a product would be counter-productive because certain activity could be beneficial. Hence, distinguishing between adverse, non-adverse and beneficial signals in the outputs needs special attention and translation. Given the diversity and number of approaches being developed, conventional validation procedures are not feasible, as progress would supersede validation. Regulatory perspectives were given as well.
Chairs
Prof. Alan Boobis (Imperial College London, UK)
Dr Anette Thiel (DSM Nutritional Products, CH)
High Throughput Screening in the Risk and Benefit Assessment of Food Ingredients
Dr Ans Punt (RIKILT, NL)
Adverse Outcome Pathways and Beyond
Prof. Mathieu Vinken (Vrije Universiteit Brussel, BE)
Strategies for Avoiding Animal Testing in Food Safety and Efficacy evaluation: challenges and opportunities
Prof. Bob van de Water (Leiden University, NL)
Regulatory Perspective on Non-Animal Approaches to Assess Foods and Food Ingredients
Dr Katrin Schütte (European Commission – DG Environment, BE)
Sustainability of Non-Animal Approaches in Different Industries: One Size Fits All?
Finlandia Hall – Session 26
Wednesday, 11 September 2019
12:00 - 14:00
Background and Objectives
There is increasing opposition among the public to the use of animals in product development. As a consequence, regulators are calling for alternative approaches for safety assessment. In response the agrochemical, cosmetic, chemical, pharmaceutical and food companies are all exploring the development of non-animal methods for this purpose. This has been fuelled by rapid advances in scientific knowledge (e.g. genomics) and technology (e.g. informatics, computational toxicology, stem cell research), together with an urgent need for improved reproducibility and translational value, causing a shift in approach towards the use of toxicity pathways and mechanistic data. There are differences in the objectives and approaches used by the different industry sectors. Hence, establishing robust quality science to support safety decisions as well as regulatory frameworks was required to accommodate these approaches. Therefore, sharing approaches across the scientific and regulatory communities is necessary to move this area forward.
Chair
Dr Phillip Bellion (DSM Nutritional Products, CH)
Non-animal approaches in the safety assessment of food and cosmetic ingredients: similarities and differences
Dr Phillip Bellion (DSM Nutritional Products, CH)
Hurdles to improve validation of alternative methods for chemicals and proposed solutions
Dr Robert Landsiedel (BASF, DE)
Alternative Approaches in the Early Phases of Pre-Clinical Toxicology. What is Really Used in the Pharmaceutical Industry?
Dr Thomas Steger-Hartmann (Bayer AG, DE)
Establishing Scientific Credibility/Validity of New Approaches for Different Decision-Making Contexts
Dr Joao Barroso (European Commission Joint Research Centre, IT)
Panel Discussion with all Speakers
What can be leveraged across sectors and what not?
Contact
For more information on the sessions, please contact Dr Lucie Geurts, Scientific Project Manager.