Our work
The assessment and evaluation of food chemical toxicology was at the core of our company when it was founded in 1961, and remains a central activity today. Our team has a broad range of experience considering the health effects of food components, including flavourings and other additives, novel ingredients and unexpected contaminants.
We are also ideally placed to assist with the assessment of food packaging and other food-contact materials. Together with expert analytical partners, we can determine health risks associated with the migration of the components of these food-contact materials, including printing inks.
Safety Benchmarks
Our health risk assessments of food ingredients and food-contact materials compare the key toxicological hazards of these chemicals with the worst-case estimates of exposure. This involves the identification – or derivation – of a health-based guidance value. Such a value is an estimate of the maximum exposure, generally qualified by route, that will pose no significant threat to human health. It will usually be based on data from laboratory animal experiments, adjusted to account for the likely differences in how humans and the other species (usually a rodent) is likely to respond to chemicals in general or (much more rarely) to that specific test chemical.
TTC
The Threshold of Toxicological Concern (TTC) approach provides a default value against which a risk assessment can be carried out. The TTC values represent low levels of exposure to an untested or data-poor chemical that is highly unlikely to pose any significant toxicological risk. The TTC concept is the scientific foundation of the risk assessment of food additives and flavourings by several regulatory bodies including the US FDA, JECFA and EFSA.
Our expertise in this area
Hazard Characterisation
Our hazard assessments, generally based on in-depth searches of the scientific literature, aim to define the dose-response for all routes of each of a chemical’s toxicological propensities.
Risk Assessment
Our health risk assessments convert the toxicological hazard profile to a health-based guidance value, and compare this reference point to an estimate of human exposure.
Safety Benchmarks
Identifying or deriving a safety benchmark is a critical step in determining the risk of a chemical to human health. These values are estimates of the maximum exposure, generally qualified by route, that will pose no significant threat.
Some of our case studies in this area
Making sense of skin sensitisation
Blog articles
From cosmetics to cleaning products, skin allergy (sensitisation) is a prominent feature of our modern chemical-centric world. Put simply, this hazard is an abnormal reaction of the immune system which makes certain individuals overly sensitive to particular chemicals. Read more in our blog, to help you make sense of sensitisation.
Knowledge is key. Part 2: The bibra TRACE database (and supporting databank)
Blog articles
In Part 1, Peter Watts gave a potted history of his personal early experience in literature searching and toxicity data identification. Along with our colleagues of the same 'fine vintage', he weathered the storms of change, progressing from a time of back-strain (from carrying huge texts around) and index finger wear (turning pages) to dial-up and then to web-based searching. With your indulgence, Pete would now like to expand a little regarding TRACE and its value to clients and the bibra toxicologists.
Knowledge is key. Part 1: Toxicity literature searching, a personal history
Blog articles
Our Toxicology Director, Peter Watts, has written a very interesting article focussing on toxicity literature searching, from his own perspective (having been at bibra for 40+ years)
