Endocrine Disruptors

Becky Brown is a Director at WCA, an independent employee-owned environmental consultancy. She is an ecotoxicologist specialising in endocrine disruptor assessments and the interpretation of the environmental effects of active substances. Recent projects include highlighting some of the issues associated with measuring vitellogenin in fish, supporting the European Chemicals Agency through a series of internal and external workshops on the new ED hazard criteria, and supporting the Environment Agency of England in developing approaches to derive threshold levels for endocrine-disrupting substances.

Thomas Gude is Managing Director of Thomas Gude GmbH, which specialises in consulting in the areas of food contact materials, food and non-food. After about 30 years with authorities, the pharmaceutical and chemical industries and a long time as the operational manager of a Swiss laboratory, he now deals with risk assessments, especially in the food contact and consumer goods sector. In addition, he teaches at various universities and technical colleges, in particular at ETH Zurich.

With a background in biochemistry, toxicology, and pharmacology, Dr. Andrea Haase completed her PhD at the University of Heidelberg and later obtained her habilitation at Freie Universität Berlin. She is Head of the Fibre and Nanotoxicology Unit and Deputy Head of the Department of Chemical and Product Safety at the German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (BfR). Her research focuses on New Approach Methodologies (NAMs), nanotoxicology, and next generation risk assessment for nano- and other advanced materials. She is a member of the EFSA Nano Network, and chairs the German Interagency Working Group on Advanced Materials.

Charles Hazlerigg is an Ecotoxicologist, UKRI Future Leaders Fellow and IBERA Diplomate based at Enviresearch, UK. He uses ecological modelling approaches to better understand the impacts of chemical stressors on populations. As a member of the Expert Committee on Pesticides (ECP) he also contributes independent, impartial advice to the UK government on the science relating to pesticides.

Philip Marx-Stoelting, Dr. rer. nat., ERT, is serving at the German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment as a scientific director heading the unit ‘Testing and assessment strategies’ in the pesticides safety department and the BfR working groups on endocrine disruptors and assessment concepts. He is involved in several large research projects on NAM development and NGRA including RiskHunt3R, Envesome or PARC, where he is leading the work-package ‘hazard assessment’. He has overseen more than 1000 risk assessments and has published more than 90 research papers and standard text book chapters. Philip is a member of the editorial board of Toxicology Letters and Reg Tox Pharm. He is also involved in several expert panels on EU and international (OECD) level and chairing the 3R working group of the German Society for Toxicology (GT) and the Mixture working group of ILMERAC.

Emily McVey is an experienced Regulatory Toxicologist and works at the Dutch National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM). Her specialties include environmental toxicology, wild vertebrates (birds, mammals, amphibians, fish), molecular mechanisms of toxicity, neurodevelopmental toxicity and endocrine disruption testing and assessment.

Stephanie Melching-Kollmuss has been working in the field of regulatory toxicology for chemicals and plant protection products for over 20 years, for more than 15 years at BASF SE. Her special interest is in endocrine disruption, mainly on the thyroid modality. Stephanie chaired the ECETOC Thyroid Task Force on how to assess thyroid-hormone related neurodevelopmental toxicity, which resulted in a number of publications; based on which criteria to support EU classifications were developed and applied to data-rich case studies.

Dimitra Nikolopoulou is a European Registered Toxicologist (ERT) and has worked as a Regulatory Toxicologist at the Benaki Phytopathological Institute (BPI), the Greek Competent Authority for the risk assessment of pesticides and biocides, since 2000. She routinely conducts and supervises the evaluation of in silico, in vitro and in vivo toxicological and endocrine-disruption data relevant to human health, in accordance with EFSA, ECHA, OECD and USEPA guidance. She has contributed to the preparation of more than 30 Draft Assessment Reports, Renewal Assessment Reports and Competent Authority Reports. She serves as the Greek national representative at EFSA Pesticide Peer Review meetings on mammalian toxicology and as a Core Member of the ECHA Biocidal Products Committee Working Group on Human Health. She has also contributed to EFSA Working Groups on the cumulative risk assessment of pesticides, metabolites common to several pyrazole active substances, and cyclamates. She has participated in several EU-funded projects and partnerships, including PARC, EuroMix and EFSA projects providing technical support in toxicology. Within PARC, she leads Task 6.3 on the review of risk assessment methodologies and manages the project “Towards a Harmonised Approach in Chemical Risk Assessment”. She is also involved in implementing case studies on endocrine-disruption assessment, integrated approaches to testing and assessment (IATA) for genotoxicity and human relevance.

Katrin Schütte is a policy officer at the EU Commission's Directorate for the Environment, which she joined in 2014. Her responsibilities cover several aspects of REACH as well as the area of non-animal testing methods and in this context the drafting and implementation of the EU Roadmap towards phasing out animal testing for chemical safety assessments.

Christine Walter is a regulatory toxicologist and has been working as a consultant for Regulatory Science Associates (RSA) since 2023. Previously, she gained more than 15 years of experience in toxicology and regulatory roles in both the agrichemical industry and pharmaceutical consultancy sectors. She has contributed to multiple human risk assessments including ED Assessments, investigative mode of action work and regulatory submissions. She holds a PhD in Biochemistry.

Lennart Weltje holds a PhD in ecotoxicology and environmental chemistry and currently works as a Senior Ecotoxicologist at BASF Agricultural Solutions Deutschland conducting risk assessments for PPPs and biocides. He is also an honorary Professor at the Faculty of Agricultural Sciences of the Georg-August University in Goettingen. His former stations include the Dutch National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM).