Abstracts Division 1

19. Assisting toxicological risk assessments of chemicals with VHP4Safety

Marvin Martens[1], Elena Dominguez-Romero[1], Ozan Cinar[1], Jente Houweling[1,2], Juliette Legler[4], Cyrille Krul[3], Anne Kienhuis[2], Esmeralda Krop[4], Ellen Moors[5], Egon Willighagen[1], Chris Evelo[1,6]

Department of Bioinformatics (BiGCaT), NUTRIM, Maastricht University, Maastricht, The Netherlands
National institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM), Bilthoven, The Netherlands
Utrecht University of Applied Sciences, Utrecht (HU), The Netherlands
Division of Toxicology, Institute for Risk Assessment Sciences, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Utrecht University, The Netherlands
Innovation Studies, Copernicus Institute of Sustainable Development, Faculty of Geosciences, Utrecht University, The Netherlands
Maastricht Centre for Systems Biology (MaCSBio), Maastricht University, Maastricht, The Netherlands

The Virtual Human Platform for Safety Assessment (VHP4Safety) is a project from the Dutch national science agenda with the ultimate goal of providing solutions to perform precision safety assessments solely based on human data, without the use of laboratory animals. The aim is to improve the prediction of potential harmful effects of chemicals based on the integration of data on human physiology, chemical characteristics and perturbations of biological processes. The project works on the development of a cloud-based infrastructure that integrates in silico models combined with databases and new approach methodologies for in vitro evaluations, to perform chemical risk assessments relevant to humans.

A central idea of the VHP4Safety project is the integration of in silico models such as PBPK, QSAR, metabolism predictors, and quantitative Adverse Outcome Pathways, with in vitro data and biological knowledge, for providing safety estimates and a thorough understanding of potential risks. Another objective of the platform is to manage access to existing clinical and in vitro data from external resources, including patient, biomonitoring and epidemiological data, as well as experimental data generated in the project. To integrate the large variety of data and models in a virtual infrastructure, core data management concepts such as Data Management Plans and FAIR principles are applied where possible, providing all essential information on the data life cycle and metadata, linked to ontologies and persistent identifiers for optimal integration and use in computational workflows.

The aim of this poster is to share the progress within VHP4Safety with the Toxicology community and to have open discussions on the implemented approaches in modelling, experimental analysis, integration, and communication, which we will initiate by formulating questions for the audience. This way, we will be able to create a more inclusive community and optimise future developments within the project for application in risk assessments.

NUTRIM | School of Nutrition and Translational Research in Metabolism
NUTRIM aims to contribute to health maintenance and personalised medicine by unraveling lifestyle and disease-induced derangements in metabolism and by developing targeted nutritional, exercise and drug interventions. This is facilitated by a state of the art research infrastructure and close interaction between scientists, clinicians, master and PhD students.
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