-ELIXIR Toxicology Community Workshop-

Leveraging Systems Biology Models for Toxicology

 

Register here

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SCIENTIFIC ORGANISERS

Rob Stierum (NL), Karine Audouze (FR), with support from Marcin Wlodzimierz Wojewodzic (NO), Joost Beltman (NL), Chris Evelo (NL) and ELIXIR Europe.

 

Rob Stierum (NL)	Karine Audouze (FR)	Chris Evelo (NL)	Marvin Martens (NL)
TNO	Université Paris Cité	Maastricht University	Maastricht University

On September 11 and 12, as part of the ELIXIR Toxicology Community (https://elixir-europe.org/communities/toxicology) implementation study INTOXICOM, a systems toxicology workshop will be held in Peiraias, which is very close to Athens, Greece, right before EUROTOX 2025. 

This workshop is the last in a row of five INTOXICOM workshops, designed for toxicology and bioinformatics researchers. The purpose of the workshop is to leverage existing systems biology tools, services, platforms, core data resources and approaches available within the ELIXIR Nodes towards toxicology.

INVITED EXPERTS

Maria Klapa (GR)	Holly Mortensen (USA)	Rahuman Sheriff (UK)	teEllen Hessel (NL)
Foundation for Research & Technology - Hellas [FORTH]   Fluxomics models, model standardization	US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) & Duke University	Imperial College London    Biomodels	RIVM    Use Case 1 Neurodevelopment

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Background and project call text WS5

ELIXIR Toxicology community workshop on Systems Biology Models for Toxicology

On September 11-12th, as part of the ELIXIR Toxicology Community (https://elixir-europe.org/communities/toxicology) implementation study INTOXICOM, a systems toxicology workshop will be held in Peiraias, which is very close to Athens, Greece, right before EUROTOX 2025.

To improve chemical risk assessment, the establishment of qualitative and quantitative exposure-health outcome models is needed. Generally expressed as linear relations, the concept of adverse outcome pathways (AOP) links molecular initiating events triggered by stressors, and subsequent key events towards adverse outcomes. To better reflect reality, AOP networks have been proposed, as multiple adverse effects that may in fact be related to a single, chemically induced perturbation and vice versa, multiple stressors/perturbations may lead to one defined adverse outcome. Additionally, epidemiological approaches serve to link exposure to health outcomes in humans, in vivo, in relation to realistic exposure scenarios.

Since the 1980s, toxicology has already embraced modelling approaches such as PBPK, toxicodynamic modelling. More recently, since the 2000s, a.o. multilevel toxicogenomics data analysis, text mining and systems toxicology approaches have been implemented. However, the further integration with fundamental systems biology approaches/resources as present within ELIXIR, is needed to further advance the field of toxicology for quantitative risk assessment.

The purpose of the workshop is to leverage existing systems biology tools, services, platforms, core data resources and approaches within the ELIXIR Nodes towards toxicology. Conversely, systems toxicology models developed within the toxicology field, will be identified as to their relevance for dissemination within ELIXIR infrastructures (e.g. bio.tools).

Throughout the workshop (and one preceding webinar), two use cases will be brought in on hazard identification, which can already serve grouping and read-across in particular when limited (in vivo) data is available, versus hazard potency ranking, useful for quantitative risk assessment when combined with external exposure data. Working groups will address these case studies and aim for use case specific publications, demonstrating the potential of ELIXIR resources. A roadmap integrating ELIXIR resources to applied systems toxicology will be discussed.

After the meeting, a workshop report will be written and submitted to BioHackrXiv as preprint. 

Find here more information about the ELIXIR Toxicology Community.