Filling the gap between risk assessment and molecular determinants of tumor onset

A vision for safer food contact materials: Public health concerns as drivers for improved testing

Food contact materials (FCMs) and food contact articles are ubiquitous in today's globalized food system. Chemicals migrate from FCMs into foodstuffs, so called food contact chemicals (FCCs), but current regulatory requirements do not sufficiently protect public health from hazardous FCCs because only individual substances used to make FCMs are tested and mostly only for genotoxicity while endocrine disruption and other hazard properties are disregarded. Indeed, FCMs are a known source of a wide range of hazardous chemicals, and they likely contribute to highly prevalent non-communicable diseases. FCMs can also include non-intentionally added substances (NIAS), which often are unknown and therefore not subject to risk assessment. To address these important shortcomings, we outline how the safety of FCMs may be improved by (1) testing the overall migrate, including (unknown) NIAS, of finished food contact articles, and (2) expanding toxicological testing beyond genotoxicity to multiple endpoints associated with non-communicable diseases relevant to human health. To identify mechanistic endpoints for testing, we group chronic health outcomes associated with chemical exposure into Six Clusters of Disease (SCOD) and we propose that finished food contact articles should be tested for their impacts on these SCOD. Research should focus on developing robust, relevant, and sensitive in-vitro assays based on mechanistic information linked to the SCOD, e.g., through Adverse Outcome Pathways (AOPs) or Key Characteristics of Toxicants. Implementing this vision will improve prevention of chronic diseases that are associated with hazardous chemical exposures, including from FCMs.

Emerging Trends in Cancer Prevention Agent Development

Advances in omics and immunology over the past 20 years have revolutionized the approach to cancer prevention, with the goal now focused on identifying populations at higher risk for developing cancer in their lifetime as a result of either extensive exposure to environmental carcinogens or harboring precancer lesions or inherited genetic mutations that predispose them to specific types of cancer(s). Thus, the naïve idea that cancer could be "prevented" in the general population has evolved to a more practical approach based on the understanding that the target population for preventive agents will be individuals who already have alterations, in gene pathways, whether inherited or environmentally caused, and the goal will be to "intercept" these lesions at the earliest stages in the path from an initial genetic lesion to full-blown cancer. The Division of Cancer Prevention of the National Cancer Institute and the Office of Disease Prevention at the National Institutes of Health recently sponsored the second biennial "Translational Advances in Cancer Preventive Agent Development Meeting," held virtually from September 7-9th. In this Meeting Report, we highlight the scientific sessions of this meeting that covered the most recent advances in preventive agent development that also highlighted these rapidly emerging trends in this research area.