Multidisciplinary approach to strengthen cooperation and establish novel platform for comprehensive assessment of food and feed safety
Abstract
Food and feed safety is frequently compromised by the occurrence of chemical contaminants in food. From the most important ones, mycotoxins, toxins of higher plants (tropan / pyrrolizidine alkaloids), pesticides residues, environmental contaminants (PAHs, chlorinated, brominated and fluorinated compounds), or processing contaminants (e.g. acrylamide) can be given as examples. The list of above mentioned toxic and bioactive compounds are already monitored today using ever more sophisticated analytical methods for enhancing sensitivity and precision. However, purely analytical methods do not consider the biological effects of such compounds, and cannot fully answer the question of food safety. This can be achieved through the various types of biological activity assessments, biological methods and rapid bioassays which may be used for the screening of multiple compounds in food, feed, water and biological samples. Biological assays can also provide a measure of mixture effects and assess multiple biological end-points. The toxicity of a compound on cellular health is complex. To date there have been very few studies reported that have tried to determine the risk to human health following exposure to such cocktails of chemical contaminants. Determination of the combined toxicity of mixtures of contaminants is extremely complicated task, and new in vitro approaches, as e.g. cumulative risk assessment (CRA), have started to be addressed. New concepts such as concentration addition (CA) and independent action (IA) have been proposed (the CA approach is used when compounds supposedly affect the same endpoint, i.e. have the same ‘mode of action’, not necessarily by the same mechanism; on the other hand, when the compounds in the mixture influence the different endpoints, the IA approach comprising the separate risk assessments have to be used). All three project partners (University of Chemistry and Technology Prague, Queens University Belfast and BOKU-IFA) have complimentary ranges of expertise and excellence in measurement science. These will be shared between each other, to build upon the existing strong competences of each institution to ensure the ability to undertake comprehensive assessments of food and feed safety.
Publikationen
Project staff
Franz Berthiller
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Franz Berthiller
franz.berthiller@boku.ac.at
Tel: +43 1 47654-97371
Project Leader
01.01.2016 - 28.01.2016
Rudolf Krska
Univ.Prof. Dipl.-Ing. Dr.techn. Rudolf Krska
rudolf.krska@boku.ac.at
Tel: +43 1 47654-97301, 97302
Project Leader
01.08.2017 - 31.12.2018
Project Staff
01.01.2016 - 31.07.2017
Alexandra Malachova
Dipl.-Ing. Dr. Alexandra Malachova
alexandra.malachova@boku.ac.at
Tel: +43 1 47654-97375
Project Leader
29.01.2016 - 31.07.2017