Risk Assessment Summer School
Between International Congresses, IUTOX sponsors advanced training for selected postgraduate and postdoctoral toxicologists in risk assessment, through the Risk Assessment Summer Schools (RASS). Risk assessment is the ultimate purpose to which toxicological testing and evaluation is directed, providing the information for decision making by industry and governments (on behalf of the population at large).
RASS offers young toxicologists the opportunity to broaden their knowledge and experience in the field of chemical risk assessment and to achieve a better understanding of how to evaluate data and inform decision makers.
The course will be held in Sao Paulo, Brazil, in February 9-15 2025. The deadline for applications is 31 January 2025.
Call for project proposals
The Joint Research Centre (JRC) has launched a new call for project proposals to access the JRC Nanobiotechnology Laboratory. This opportunity is open to researchers and scientists from EU Member States and Horizon Europe Associated countries. Candidate users can contact
The deadline for applications is 21 May 2024.
Please check the call for further info.
Call for Training and Capacity Building
The centre has also opened a call for Training and Capacity Building (T&CB) to enable researchers to learn using JRC facilities. Involvement of early career scientists in the project proposals is highly encouraged!
The deadline for both applications is 21 May 2024.
Please check the specific T&CB call for further info.
EFSA Traineeships Call 2024
The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), based in Parma, Italy, is opening positions for Trainees (All Units and Departments).
Please send us your application by 29 April 2024 at 23.59 (local time).
Early Career Forum (ECF)
EUROTOX wants to engage with our early career toxicologists, and we are setting up a group of engaged early career toxicologists to create an Early Career Forum.
The aim of this group is to bring your interests to the fore to help advance EUROTOX activities, including training, courses and to develop EUROTOX Congresses and to give you a voice in the future of EUROTOX.
Express your interest – get in touch
Complete the FORM to become a part of this new initiative.
MARCH
Death of Professor Jean-Roger CLAUDE
Honorary President of the SFT
We have learned with the greatest affliction, the death this weekend of Professor Jean-Roger CLAUDE in his 89th year.
His career has been exceptional as reflected by the many prestigious positions he has held: Professor Emeritus of Toxicology at the Faculty of Pharmacy Paris V René Descartes, President of the Council of Universities, member of the National Commission for the Authorization of the Marketing of Medicines, member of the National Academy of Pharmacy to name a few. He was also Officer of the Order of Academic Palms and Knight of the National Order of Merit.
His sharpness of mind and intelligence were recognized beyond our borders, as illustrated by his functions and missions abroad: Expert to the European Union, member of scientific committees of the EMA. He had obtained, among others, the prestigious award of the Drug Information Association.
With more than 600 publications, it would be a challenge to list all his contributions in Toxicology. His memory of the history of Toxicology and his remarkable knowledge are a great loss for the scientific community.
He was at the origin of the creation of EUROTOX in 1989 at the Brighton congress and the 5ème President of the SFT (1983-1985).
The French Society of Toxicology will remember that he was for many of us more than a brilliant Professor, he was an advisor, a man who carried high the values of friendship and loyalty. We are deeply saddened by his death.
His funeral will take place on Friday, March 24, 2023. The religious ceremony will be celebrated at 11:00 am in the church of the Immaculate Conception, 34 rue du Rendez-Vous, Paris 12.
Our thoughts are with his wife, Nancy CLAUDE, and his family.
The board of SFT
Communiqué
https://ed-pepper.eu/appel-doffres-pour-des-laboratoires/
https://ed-pepper.eu/en/call-of-tender-for-the-laboratories/
Pepper is now looking for partner laboratories interested in the validation of a new series of methods. This year three new methods were chosen by the Relevance Committee on October 24, 2022. Each one of them answers to a great need of more mature methods for EDCs identification. These methods are the following :
* In vitro assay for hepatic triglyceride accumulation
* Deiodinase 1 (DIO1) activity based on Sandell-Kolthoff (SK) reaction
* Mineralocorticoid Receptor Transactivation Assay (MR TA)
Prevalidation at Pepper involves two steps:
- A first step to assess the transferability of the methods by ensuring that the partner laboratories can successfully implement the methods and obtain consistent results.
- A second step to assess their relevance and reliability by testing coded substances
The final outcome is submission to international organisations such as OECD to increase the set of regulatory tools available for the characterisation of endocrine disrupters.
Communiqué of the SFT board
Dear colleagues,
In these particularly tragic times of war in Ukraine, we hereby wish to express our solidarity with the entire Ukrainian population.
In this context, we would like to offer our full support to the Ukrainian scientific community and toxicologists in particular. Thus, if you have the possibility to host Ukrainian students in toxicology, the French Society of Toxicology is willing to contribute to the financing of their arrival through mobility grants to facilitate their orientation in your research laboratories or companies.
In the same spirit of mutual aid and strengthening of international scientific cooperation, several job offers allowing to take advantage of the experience and skills of our Ukrainian colleagues are published on this site (click here).
If you are in contact with Ukrainian toxicologists, with Ukrainian students in toxicology, please do not hesitate to re-direct them to us, via our secretariat (
Best regards,
The SFT Board
Press release
In August 2021 a consortium between the Austrian Agency for Health and Food Safety (AGES) and Benaki Phytopathological Institute (BPI) started the project on how to report, use and interpret historical control data in toxicity studies. This project is supported and funded by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA).
Historical control data (HCD) describes the natural incidence of a finding, observed in the same species (rat, mouse dog, rabbit, birds, etc.) and the same type of toxicological study (short-term, chronic, reproductive study, etc.), and performed in a fixed time period either before or after the index study. HCD are used to assist scientists on the interpretation of the effects observed in toxicity studies, i.e. to decide whether these were induced by exposure to a chemical or were within the range of spontaneous variation.
Although the principles and prerequisites for the use of HCD sound simple, the understanding of the purpose and the interpretation of these data are very heterogeneous. Different legislative frameworks have different both legal or non-legally binding criteria and definitions on the requirements for HCD in order to justify their use. Different criteria for HCD worldwide may have a high impact on evaluation of toxicological studies, even within the same sector, leading to a non-harmonised derivation of health-based guidance values.
One of the objectives of the project is the discussion of the criteria for use, reporting and interpretation of HCD. For this, we have launched a survey, and your participation as toxicologist or risk assessor will greatly help us to understand better the use, reporting and interpretation of HCD. The survey is open until February 21, 2022 and the link to the survey is https://www.askallo.com/s/2ny3mr/hcd
You may also consider registering to our virtual workshop, to be held on May 3-5, 2022, 12-16 CET. Attendance to the three-day workshop will be free held. The workshop will be mainly dedicated to HCD in the context of mammalian toxicology but a limited slot will be reserved also for HCD in ecotoxicology studies. Please save the date. The registration will be announced on the BPI website (https://www.bpi.gr/) in February 2022 and you will be informed accordingly.
Communiqué
The University of Paris-Saclay, the University of Paris, and the non-profit Health and Environmental Sciences Institute (HESI), are proud to announce a jointly hosted online workshop on Environmental, Genetic and Social Determinants of Individual Susceptibility to Disease.
This exciting webinar will feature leading researchers who bring their cross-disciplinary approaches and perspectives to the many challenges at the intersection of biological, environmental, and societal influences on health outcome. The interactive format will allow for discussion across the speakers and for participants to submit questions.
Feel free to join us, no cost at all.