Anna Beronius

My research focuses on development of methodologies for regulatory health risk assessment of endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDs) and chemical mixtures. This entails scrutiny of chemicals legislation, regulatory requirements, and decision-making processes, as well as development, evaluation and validation of science-based risk assessment methodology. Existing risk assessments, methodologies and toxicological studies are the subjects of study. I also collaborate with other research groups that work experimentally. The overarching goal is improved approaches to toxicity testing and risk assessment of EDs that are up to date with scientific developments and aligned with regulatory requirements and needs. A connected aspect of my research is facilitating science-to-policy interactions and bridging the gap between academic research and chemicals regulation.

My specific research interest is Next Generation Risk Assessment (NGRA) and implementation of New Approach Methodologies (NAM) in regulatory assessment of EDs. The underlying principle is maximising the use of mechanistic data from in vitro and in silico methods to improve human relevance of toxicity data and reduce the need for animal testing. This work entails development and application of tools and approaches such as Adverse Outcome Pathways (AOP) and Integrated Approaches to Testing and Assessment (IATA), as well as development of systematic methodologies for Weight of Evidence (WoE) assessment to facilitate robust evidence integration in risk assessment. I lead and am involved in several national and international research projects, including the European Partnership for the Assessment of Risks from Chemicals (PARC), the Horizon Europe project MERLON, and projects funded by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) and the Swedish research council Formas.

I am also one of the initiators of the Science in Risk Assessment and Policy (SciRAP) project and online platform, where we develop structured methods and tools for evaluating reliability and relevance of toxicity data for hazard and risk assessment of chemicals.

I am Deputy Programme Director at the Master’s Programme in Toxicology at KI and am primarily active as a teacher and course leader at that programme. I am also course leader and teacher at several PhD courses in Health Risk Assessment. Together with colleagues at IMM I am also involved in organising training for professionals at national and European authorities, such as the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) and European Chemicals Agency (ECHA).

I have supervised several PhD students and master students from the Toxicology programme and through the Erasmus+ exchange programme.