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Learning: Safety & Toxicity

How can be we sure that CHAMPION products are safe?

A vital part of the CHAMPION project is the safety assessment. It is necessary to ensure that the new polymers are safe to use.

These videos explain the need for safety assessment in Green Chemistry. Video 1 is from our CHAMPION webinar where safety assessment methods were presented with results from CHAMPION so far, showing that safety is built into the design of CHAMPION's materials. 

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Videos 2 and 3 are directed specifically at high school students. There is a Dutch version and an English version.

The safety assessment used in CHAMPION

In the CHAMPION project, an innovative, non-animal testing strategy is used to rapidly evaluate toxicological safety issues of CHAMPION candidates at a very early stage in the development. This ensures that safety is built into the design of CHAMPION’s materials, and prevents regrettable substitutions.

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Many conventional polymers are produced from chemicals with known toxicity issues. CHAMPION’s mission is to ensure that any new materials being developed will have a better overall toxicity profile compared to those currently used, from starting materials through intermediates to the final materials. To accomplish this, an innovative testing strategy has been designed to select candidates with a favourable toxicological profile using high-throughput in vitro safety screening methods.

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The testing strategy encompasses a panel of human cell-based CALUX® assays. This panel can be used to rapidly evaluate major types of toxicity relevant for regulatory risk assessment and consumer confidence. Individual assays and combinations thereof have been proven to be highly predictive of chemical toxicities (e.g. endocrine and reproductive toxicity, cytotoxicity, acute toxicity and genotoxicity, Figure 1). The resulting CALUX activity profile can be used for early-stage hazard identification and risk assessment, and provide important information to assist in candidate prioritisation and safe design.

Figure 1 – The general principle of risk assessment using the CALUX assay panel

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This project has received funding from the Bio Based Industries Joint Undertaking (JU) under grant agreement No 887398. The JU receives support from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme and the Bio Based Industries Consortium.

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