Genotoxic Compounds

Carol Beevers is a Regulatory Toxicologist, specialising in genetic toxicology. After gaining a degree in Microbiology and a PhD in Bacterial Genetics, Carol joined the Genetic Toxicology department at Covance Laboratories (now Labcorp) as an in vitro and in vivo Study Director. After almost 20 years in contract research, she moved to consultancy, first in the Human Health Toxicology group at Exponent International and then the Toxicology Group at Broughton Life Sciences. More recently, Carol has joined the toxicology team at Corteva Agriscience. Carol has worked across a variety of industry areas including pharmaceuticals, agrochemicals, food and food contact materials, and industrial chemicals, where she has specialised in genetic toxicology risk and mode of action assessments. Since 2015 she has been a member of the UK Committee on Mutagenicity of Chemicals in Food, Consumer Products, and the Environment. She is also a member of the OECD Expert Groups for the guidelines on the transgenic rodent gene mutation assay and the comet assay, the Health and Environmental Sciences Institute Genetic Toxicology Testing Committee and the International Workshops on Genotoxicity Testing.

Raffaella Corvi has a PhD in Biological Sciences and has been working at the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission since 2001 where she established the activities in the area of genotoxicity and carcinogenicity. In 2003 she was seconded to the OECD Test Guideline Programme in Paris. Currently, she conducts activities that evaluate innovative and integrated approaches to assess chemical safety across sectors and support their regulatory implementation, while also promoting the 3Rs across multiple regulatory sectors. She is currently leading a working group for the revision of germ cell mutagenicity classification criteria at the UN Globally Harmonized System of Classification and Labelling of Chemicals (GHS) and is a member of several European and international committees (e.g. co-chair of the European Partnership for Alternative Approaches to Animal testing (EPAA) project platform, OECD expert groups, HESI Genetic Toxicology Technical Committee, etc.).

Nathalie Delrue joined the OECD Secretariat in 2006 and is an Administrator of the OECD Test Guidelines Programme. She coordinates the development and revision of Test Guidelines and related documents for human-health endpoints, including genotoxicity and carcinogenicity, and has been closely involved in OECD activities to develop and update genotoxicity test methods.

Carsten Kneuer is a Toxicologist and the Head of the Unit “Toxicology of Active Substances and their Metabolites“ in the Pesticides Safety Department of the German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment. His group is evaluating the mammalian toxicology of pesticides within the EU assessment framework and is actively involved in various projects aimed at the advancement of our risk assessment practice.

Birgit Mertens obtained her Master in Pharmaceutical Sciences and PhD in Neuropharmacology from the Vrije Universiteit Brussel in Belgium. She joined Sciensano in 2010 and is currently a Senior Toxicologist and team leader of the Risk and Health Impact Assessment Service. She coordinates and participates in multiple (inter)national research projects and activities on the genotoxicity of physical and chemical agents, focusing on food contaminants and developing and applying new approach methodologies. She is the National Coordinator of the Test Methods Programme both at the European and OECD level and the Belgian contact point for the Preliminary Assessment of the Regulatory Relevance of Alternative Methods (PARERE) network. She is also a member of the OECD genotoxicity expert group. She participates in different (inter)national working groups and scientific committees on hazard and risk assessment and is the current president of the Belgian Environmental Mutagenesis Society.

Krista Meurer has been a Regulatory Toxicologist for Crop Protection at BASF since 2008. In support of European and global registrations, she is responsible for human health risk assessment for pesticide products and active substances. Based on 10 years experience as a Study Director in contract research, Krista has a special interest in genetic toxicology testing and is a co-chair of the CropLife Europe genotoxicity expert group as well as member of the Health and Environmental Sciences Institute (HESI) Genetic Technical Committee (GTTC).

Juan Parra Morte has been Toxicologist in the Pesticide Peer Review Unit of EFSA since 2008. He has been actively involved in the assessment of pesticide active substances, their metabolites and impurities, including the EFSA PPR, the OECD Guidance on Residue Definition and EFSA's outsourced projects on the Genotoxicity Database and QSAR and Read-Across for the genotoxicity of metabolites. He is chairing the EFSA Working Group on NAMs QSARs.

Stefan Pfuhler is employed by Procter & Gamble, USA, and serves as their Global Genotoxicity Expert with 25 years of Product Safety experience in the consumer goods industry. Within that role, he manages genotoxicity issues for P&G products and ingredients, develops and supports testing strategies and policies across the company, leads the P&G Genotoxicity Expert Team and research program, targeting improved in vitro assays and avoidance of animal testing.

Paul A. White obtained his BSc in microbiology and immunology, and PhD in environmental toxicology, from McGill University in Montreal. He conducted post-doctoral research at US EPA facilities in Rhode Island and North Carolina; investigating the mutagenic hazards of municipal wastewaters. He joined Health Canada in 1999 and is currently a senior research scientist in the Environmental Health Science and Research Bureau. In 2002 he was appointed Professor of Chemical and Environmental Toxicology in the Department of Biology at the University of Ottawa. His current work investigates the mutagenic and carcinogenic hazards of complex mixtures, the design and validation of in vitro tools for genetic toxicity assessment, the use of molecular biomarkers for mutagen exposure assessment, and the application of quantitative methods for interpretation of genetic toxicity dose-response data. He has published over 140 peer-reviewed papers, and his work has been cited over 8000 times. He currently serves on the editorial boards of Environmental and Molecular Mutagenesis, Mutation Research Reviews, Genes and Environment, and Food and Chemical Toxicology, and he is currently the vice-president of the International Association of Environmental Mutagenesis and Genomics Societies (IAEMGS).