Beth O Connell

Beth O’Connell

Principal Toxicologist

UKRT/ERT

About Beth

Beth has an MA (Cantab) in Natural Sciences from the University of Cambridge, an MSc in Forensic Science from King’s College London, and is a Registered Toxicologist. She has been a toxicologist at bibra for 14 years, and is skilled in searching for and consolidating data on the mammalian toxicology of chemicals, and assessing these data in the context of human health.

Beth has worked for government agencies, and clients from a range of industrial sectors, including consumer products, food, pharmaceuticals, medical devices and cosmetics. Beth has worked to establish the modes of action (MoAs) of chemical carcinogens, and regularly derives tolerable human exposures by different routes (oral, inhalation, dermal, injection) for both genotoxic and non-genotoxic substances. Over the years, Beth has performed risk assessments on hundreds of chemicals, including additives, flavourings, pharmaceutical impurities, degradants, extractables, leacahles and excipients. She has evaluated the safety of a range of different medical devices in compliance with ISO 10993, and has assisted both with REACH work on industrial chemicals and pre-manufacture notice (PMN) submissions for compliance with the US Toxic Substance Control Act (TSCA). Another area of interest is the cosmetics sector, for which Beth has drafted cosmetic product safety reports (CPSRs) under the European Cosmetics Regulation ((EC) 1223/2009), assessing the toxicological properties of individual cosmetics ingredients to ensure that products are safe for human use.

Beth also helps peer review Toxicology and Regulatory News, bibra’s monthly publication summarising critical developments and reports relevant to the field of mammalian toxicology.

Outside of work Beth attends both creative writing and life drawing classes, and is training for her purple stripe belt in kickboxing!

Beth's case studies and blog posts

Evaluation of the safety of two complex cosmetics ingredients

Case study

The client was interested in extending the conditions of use of two of its manufactured surfactants to cosmetics and requested a risk assessment in order to evaluate their safety in a range of rinse-off and leave-on products. The two surfactants are each a mixture of several different structurally-related chemicals.

Cosmetic Product Safety Report (CPSR) on a skin cream

Case study

Under Regulation (EC) 1223/2009, cosmetics within the European Union should not be placed on the market if they are harmful to health under normal or reasonably foreseeable conditions of use. Bibra was asked to produce a CPSR on a skin cream with multiple ingredients.

Exploring Alternative Methods to Animal Toxicity Testing

Blog articles

It has been promised for a heck of a long time, but are we now close to an era when a chemical’s toxic potential can be comprehensively defined without exploiting fellow sentient creatures. As well as this obvious ethical gain, alternative test methods to animal testing have the equally attractive potential to reduce the times and costs associated with safety testing.

Want to read more case studies and blog posts that Beth has been involved in? Click below to read more.

Contact us