Predicting liver injury from food-related chemical exposures

Safeguarding human health in the age of global food trade requires sound scientific knowledge of potential toxicity from continuously increasing numbers of chemicals in food. 3R initiatives to replace animal studies are further spurred by accumulating evidence that interspecies differences limit their usefulness for predicting adverse effects of chronic exposure to chemicals in humans. These challenges underscore the urgent need for a toxicology paradigm shift from in vivo effect observation to effect prediction and read-across, including the use of mathematical models for in vitro to in vivo extrapolation (IVIVE). The goal of this project is to integrate knowledge of toxicity mechanisms with advanced bioanalytics, in vitro human cell models, and bioinformatics to establish an integrated platform for predicting liver injury from food-related chemical exposures.