EDC-MixRisk – Safe chemicals for future generations

The EDC-MixRisk Consortium came together for its annual meeting in Stockholm, 15-17 May, to discuss the project’s progress and future activities.

The meeting was organized as a three-day event, combining an 1) Adverse Outcome Pathway  (AOP) workshop 2) a joint meeting between EDC-MixRisk and EDC-2020 to present scientific results and 3) one and half days dedicated for the EDC-MixRisk Consortium discussions.

The meeting was a great opportunity to learn more about an AOP approach and get highlights and glimpses of scientific results generated within the two projects, EDC-MixRisk and EDC-2020. Furthermore, the meeting provided a great forum to share lessons learned as well as to receive feedback and to discuss further ideas and plans with the Members of the Scientific Advisory Board.

The programme of the last one and half days of the meeting gave an overview of the project progress and on the tasks within the different modules. Also an update on management and dissemination activities was presented. The module breakout sessions drilled into the challenges, future plans and details of the work which were reported on the final day of the meeting.

The first results generated within the project have demonstrated the validity of project’s integrated approach – interaction between epidemiology and experimental toxicology, and the need to take mixture effects into account for risk assessment. It was summarized that overall, the project is progressing well and is largely on track in terms of its tasks and timeline.

The 2018 Consortium meeting will be held again in Stockholm, the hometown of the Project Coordinator, Prof. Åke Bergman.

EDC-MixRisk is a four-year project financed through the EU Commission’s programme Horizon 2020, which started in the spring of 2015. It involves participation from six Swedish Swetox-universities, as well as five European and one American. The project focuses on the effects of mixtures of endocrine disruptive chemicals (EDCs) on children.

The interdisciplinary and integrated research approach of EDC-MixRisk includes:

• epidemiology of two child cohorts focused on three health domains (growth and metabolism, neurodevelopment, and sexual development)
• a web of experimental toxicology and molecular biology approaches to determine multiple adverse health outcomes with pathways starting at the molecular level during early life exposure to EDC mixtures
• regulatory toxicology for development of a transparent and systematic risk assessment framework. Together this interdisciplinary research, integrating epidemiologic and experimental evidence, will facilitate assessment of risk and societal impact ensuring better risk management for EDCs and their mixtures.

EDC-2020 is a five-year research program on endocrine disrupting chemicals financed by approx. one million euro a year by the Swedish Research Council Formas on behalf of the Swedish Government. The core of the project is five research areas and a training program. Eleven Swedish Swetox-universities have joint together in the efforts of EDC-2020.

EDC-2020 aims to:

• create an enabling environment for strong research on EDCs and for scientific advances and innovations, which will benefit the field of toxicology-related sciences as a whole.
• establish an overarching national program for research on EDCs, optimizing cooperation between national universities as well as with the Swetox facilities in Södertälje, and improve interdisciplinary research.
• establish an international EDC collaboration platform including world-leading experts and to link students in toxicological sciences across the country.