Technical Meeting: Gut microbiome in food safety chemical risk assessment

FAO hosted the Technical Meeting: Gut microbiome in food safety chemical risk assessment which was held from 12 – 14 December 2023. A multiregional and multidisciplinary group of experts – spanning from toxicologists to microbial ecology specialists and involved in chemical risk assessments and microbiome research programmes – discussed the identification of microbiome-related data suitability, gaps and needs for chemical risk assessment, as well as the microbiome-host interactions and its biological relevance.

The experts also identified the conditions and developments that need to take place in order to integrate the different gut microbiome data into chemical risk assessment which were categorized in three main areas, i.e. definitions, research, and methodological and analytical standardization.

Catherine Bessy (FAO, Senior Food Safety Officer) concluded that, despite the ambitious nature of the meeting programme and the limited time to discuss numerous challenging questions, the group was able to find common grounds for the identification and prioritization of short- and medium-term actions. Such activities will need to be explored further to eventually update the requirements and processes of food safety chemical risk assessments. Bessy also emphasized that the meeting has been instrumental in initiating a much-needed dialog between chemical risk assessors and microbiome experts and envisions a number of follow-up activities that will engage a broader expert community.

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