Traditional chemical risk assessment approaches have separated the human from the environment, which has allowed toxicologists to focus in on relevant species and data to assess possible exposure levels or hazards with a narrowed scope of concern. However, there is a growing appreciation for the interconnectedness of biology and that humans are not necessarily unique from environmental chemical hazards.
Lauren Brown from Applied Risk and Toxicology LLC chaired the “Human and Ecological Risk Assessment: Has the Time Come for Greater Integration of Approaches?” Symposium Session.
Joseph Shaw from PRECISIONTOX began with a presentation on “Searching for the Evolutionary Origins of Chemical Toxicity.” His research involves looking for evolutionary origins of chemical toxicity by understanding mechanisms of toxicity to develop a new field of phylotoxicology or how chemicals can present similarly through biological phyla. By comparing adverse effects, mechanisms of toxicity, and transcriptomics, similarities between species may be observed and leveraged as part of risk assessment or to predict potential responses between biologically similar species.
Daniele Wikoff from ToxStrategies LLC then presented on the “Development of an Integrated Human and Environmental Health Safety Assessment Framework: Initial Findings and Progress from a Consortium Effort.” She has been working on establishing a risk assessment framework that integrates both human and environmental health and data to build a robust and thorough risk assessment. She emphasized defining the problem, looking at mechanisms and the adverse outcome pathway, and using an iterative process to keep refining the assessments as data is reviewed or generated. Future work on the framework is planned to include testing and refining it with case studies.
Bruno Campos of Unilever then presented a “Case Study-Led Evaluation of an Integrated Human Health-Environmental Next-Generation Risk Assessment Framework.” He highlighted that there is a current disconnect in vocabulary between human health risk assessors and environmental risk assessors, but completing a risk assessment should be inclusive of both human and environmental potential impacts to be adequately protective and efficacious. His case study applied a tiered approach, which he advocated would be necessary in most cases as data is almost always lacking in various areas of an assessment. He also highlighted that when mapping relevant doses for chemicals across various species, trends can be seen in the data that converge upon consistent conclusions.
Ms. Brown led a lively panel discussion with Q&A. There were many questions focused on reducing uncertainty, regulatory acceptance of the framework, and applying the framework to include species of endangered animals or unique plants that are not commonly captured in ecological risk assessment. The closing comments of the session included a call to action on keeping attention on chemical pollution that is increasing adverse outcomes (especially in areas of the world with additional support needs) and that integrated approaches would be needed worldwide to support a one health concept.
The session was endorsed by Sustainable Chemicals through Contemporary Toxicology Specialty Section, In Vitro and Alternative Methods Specialty Section, and Mechanisms Specialty Section.
This blog reports on the Synposium Session titled “Human and Ecological Risk Assessment: Has the Time Come for Greater Integration of Approaches?” that was held during the 2026 SOT Annual Meeting and ToxExpo. An on-demand recording of this session is available for meeting registrants on the SOT Online Planner and SOT Event App.
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