title: Highlight report: Launch of a large integrated European in vitro toxicology project: EU-ToxRisk.
abstract: The integrated European project, EU-ToxRisk, proudly sees itself as "flagship" exploring new alternative-to-animal approaches to chemical safety evaluation. It promotes mechanism-based toxicity testing and risk assessment according to the principles laid down for toxicology for the twenty-first century. The project was officially launched in January 2016 with a kickoff meeting in Egmond aan Zee, the Netherlands. Over 100 scientists representing academia and industry as well as regulatory authorities attended the inaugural meeting. The project will integrate advances in in vitro and in silico toxicology, read-across methods, and adverse outcome pathways. EU-ToxRisk will continue to make use of the case study strategy deployed in SEURAT-1, a FP7 initiative ended in December 2015. Even though the development of new non-animal methods is one target of EU-ToxRisk, the project puts special emphasis on their acceptance and implementation in regulatory contexts. This €30 million Horizon 2020 project involves 38 European partners and one from the USA. EU-ToxRisk aims at the "development of a new way of risk assessment."
authors.affiliation: Center for Alternatives to Animal Testing - Europe, University of Konstanz, Konstanz, Germany.
authors.forename: Mardas
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Daneshian
authors.affiliation: BASF SE, Ludwigshafen am Rhein, Germany.
authors.forename: Hennicke
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Kamp
authors.affiliation: Leibniz Research Centre for Working Environment and Human Factors, TU Dortmund, Dortmund, Germany.
authors.forename: Jan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Hengstler
authors.affiliation: Center for Alternatives to Animal Testing - Europe, University of Konstanz, Konstanz, Germany. Marcel.Leist@uni-konstanz.de.|Department of In Vitro Toxicology and Biomedicine, University of Konstanz, Konstanz, Germany. Marcel.Leist@uni-konstanz.de.
authors.forename: Marcel
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Leist
authors.affiliation: Division of Toxicology, Leiden Academic Center for Drug Research, Leiden University, Leiden, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Bob
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: van de Water
mesh_terms: D000826:Animal Testing Alternatives; D000818:Animals; D035843:Biomedical Research / Q000379:methods* / Q000458:organization & administration; D003299:Cooperative Behavior; D005060:Europe; D006801:Humans; D066298:In Vitro Techniques; D007391:International Cooperation; D016730:Program Development; D018570:Risk Assessment; D014116:Toxicology / Q000379:methods* / Q000458:organization & administration; D057188:Workflow