Euromix

The project

Every day, we are exposed to a mixture of multiple chemicals via food intake, inhalation and dermal contact. The risk to health that may result from this depends on how the effects of different chemicals in the mixture combine, and whether there is any synergism or antagonism between them. The number of different combinations of chemicals in mixtures is infinite and an efficient test strategy for mixtures is lacking. Furthermore, there is a societal need to reduce animal testing, which is the current practice in safety testing of chemicals. The EuroMix project will deliver a mixture test strategy and test instruments using novel techniques as recently proposed by the Joint Research Centre (JRC) of the European Commission. The tests will result in data needed for refining future risk assessment of mixtures relevant to national food safety authorities, public health institutes, the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), the European Chemical Agency (ECHA), industry, regulatory bodies and other stakeholders. Ultimately, this will provide information for future risk management decisions on the safety of chemicals in mixtures to be taken by the European Commission and the Codex Alimentarius.

Outcomes

The EuroMix model and data platform, MCRA 9, is a web-based toolbox for human health hazard identification, hazard characterisation, exposure assessment and risk assessment related to chemical substances. MCRA stands for Monte Carlo Risk Assessment. The MCRA toolbox brings together statistical models, shared data and data uploaded by the user.

Our team contributed to MCRA by providing the computer code for the generic PBTK model included in the toolbox. The PBTK model code is available on Zenodo at DOI 10.5281/zenodo.3553689.

Publications

Publications and deliverables of the EuroMix project are accessible through the Zenodo repository.

1. Tebby, C., van der Voet, H., de Sousa, G., Rorije, E., Kumar, V., de Boer, W., Kruisselbrink, J. W., Bois, F. Y., Faniband, M., Moretto, A., Brochot, C. 2020. A generic PBTK model implemented in the MCRA platform: Predictive performance and uses in risk assessment of chemicals. Food and Chemical Toxicology, 142, 111440.

2. van der Voet, H., Kruisselbrink, J. W., de Boer, W. J., van Lenthe, M. S., van den Heuvel, J. J. B., Crépet, A., Kennedy, M. C., Zilliacus, J., Beronius, A., Tebby, C., Brochot, C., Luckert, C., Lampen, A., Rorije, E., Sprong, C. and van Klaveren, J. D. (2020). The MCRA toolbox of models and data to support chemical mixture risk assessment. Food and Chemical Toxicology 138, 111185. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fct.2020.111185

3. Bois FY, Golbamaki-Bakhtyari N, Kovarich S, Tebby C, Gabb HA, Lemazurier E. 2017. High-Throughput Analysis of Ovarian Cycle Disruption by Mixtures of Aromatase Inhibitors. Environ Health Perspect. Volume 125, issue 7, pp 077012.

See also the COSMOS model (further developed by us in this project) on the Software page.