Contaminants in the Food Chain
The Panel on Contaminants in the Food Chain (CONTAM) provides scientific advice on contaminants in the food chain and undesirable substances such as natural toxicants, mycotoxins and residues of unauthorised substances.
CONTAM Panel Members are scientists from across Europe with expertise in:
- Chemistry – organic, inorganic, analytical chemistry, food and feed processing in the area of chemical contaminants
- Exposure assessment – expertise is required especially in relation to dietary exposure assessment of chemical contaminants including knowledge on food consumption surveys
- Human and veterinary toxicology (in risk assessment of chemicals) – absorption, distribution, metabolism, excretion (ADME) of substances (toxicokinetics and toxicodynamics), sub-chronic and chronic toxicity (repeated dose studies), genotoxicity and mutagenicity, developmental and reproductive toxicity, carcinogenicity, allergenicity and immunotoxicity.
- Toxicological tests in experimental animals – interpreting toxic effects of chemical contaminants in farm and pet animals
- Epidemiology – biomarkers of the effects and exposure and interpretation of human data)
- Statistics – assessment of dose-response effects, e.g. benchmark dose modelling and analysis of complex (epidemiological) data sets
- Animal nutrition – animal exposure assessment.