Chairs: Anne Marie Vinggaard & Mohamed Fathi
The toxicological impact of exposure to chemical mixtures is a significant and growing concern, yet these mixtures have only gradually begun to be incorporated into regulatory risk assessments. Key knowledge gaps remain regarding which and how many chemicals contribute to mixture effects in both the environment and humans. Additionally, scientific uncertainty persists around the validity of the dose addition principle for complex mixtures, particularly those consisting of numerous chemicals at low concentrations, as they occur in the human body. This session will address these challenges by presenting a novel experimental approach based on whole-mixture assessments to identify and quantify the risks posed by chemical mixtures extracted from real-life samples, those from the environment, food, and humans.
The innovative methodologies featured in this session combine a range of in vitro assays, effect-directed analyses, and large-scale suspect and non-targeted chemical profiling. A particular focus will be on a well-characterised human cohort of newborns, with chemical mixture drivers identified in cord blood and linked to adverse health outcomes such as reproductive toxicity (e.g., shortened anogenital distance) and developmental neurotoxicity (e.g., impaired IQ levels or increased risk of ADHD symptoms).
The session will also showcase the latest advancements in risk assessment of chemical mixtures, including various mixture modeling approaches, case study analyses, and the calculation of effect-based trigger values, which can be directly measured in water, food, and blood to determine when exposure to chemical mixtures poses a health risk.
Through the Green Deal project PANORAMIX and collaboration with regulatory and scientific stakeholders, this work will support the integration of mixture risk assessment and management strategies. The goal is to reduce the most critical exposures and optimize regulatory approaches, ultimately contributing to evidence-based policies that align with the EU’s zero-pollution objective, helping to create a toxic-free environment for the future.
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Speakers
- Beate Escher – Effects of chemical mixtures across the continuum from the environment to humans
- Maria Margalef – CHEMICAL MIXTURES IN HUMAN CORD BLOOD: BIOASSAY RESPONSES AND LINKS TO EARLY CHILDHOOD HEALTH EFFECTS
- Arslan Hashmi – Case studies on chemical mixture risk assessment with a focus on human breast milk and human cord blood serum
- Anne Marie Vinggaard – Complex chemical mixtures across the environment-food-human continuum
- Bruno Dujardin – ADVANCING REGULATORY RISK ASSESSMENT FOR COMBINED EXPOSURE TO MULTIPLE CHEMICALS