Current regulatory testing requirements for food contact articles (FCAs) do not adequately protect public health from hazardous food contact chemicals (FPF reported and here) because testing is largely limited to individual intentionally used substances and focuses primarily on genotoxicity – one of the known mechanisms by which chemicals can cause cancer. In addition to not addressing the other types of disease that can be caused by chemical exposures, the current testing approach disregards that chemical mixtures are present in FCAs and that these mixtures can also contribute to a range of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) and adverse health effects.
In 2023, more than 20 international scientists led by the Food Packaging Forum (FPF) grouped prevalent NCDs associated with hazardous chemical exposures into the Six Clusters of Disease (SCODs), namely cancer, reproductive disorders, metabolic disease, immunological disorders, cardiovascular disease, and brain-related disorders. They proposed that finished FCAs should be tested for their impacts on the SCODs (FPF reported).
In an article published on August 16, 2026, in the peer-reviewed journal Environment International, scientists now present 15 high-throughput in vitro bioassays that allow screening of single chemicals and chemical mixtures for impacts on these SCODs. The study was led by Sarah Stevens from the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ), Germany, and co-authored by FPF.
To identify the most relevant bioassays, the researchers first identified the Adverse Outcome Pathways (AOPs) across the SCODs that can be triggered by chemical exposures and found 266 distinct AOPs. Next, they organized these 266 AOPs into disease-specific networks, where the brain-related disorders network comprised the largest number of AOPs (84), followed by the reproductive disorders network (65), cancer (52), cardiovascular disease (28), immunological disorders (27), and metabolic disease network (25).
In these networks, the scientists identified several biological key events where the pathways diverge, converge, and can play a central role in promoting the different diseases. Such key events occur across multiple disease clusters, including cytotoxicity, oxidative stress, and mitochondrial dysfunction. In addition, receptor-specific key events occur frequently, whereas others are specific to individual disease clusters. Based on this analysis, the researchers identified a set of 15 bioassays that correspond to these key events and enable high-throughput screening of both individual chemicals and chemical mixtures.
Lead author Stevens emphasizes: “By translating these prioritized endpoints into in vitro assays suitable for high-throughput screening, we are making the results actionable. The proposed panel of 15 assays could enable much broader toxicological screening of chemicals than is currently standard practice. This would be a significant improvement in protecting public health from hazardous chemicals present across a wide range of products we use daily.”
As a next step, the authors note that the bioassays need to be validated to determine how effectively they identify known hazardous chemicals.
One potential application of the new test panel would be to assess food packaging currently on the market for chemical safety, including the many often unknown and therefore untested non-intentionally added substances (NIAS) it can contain. A study testing food-contact chemicals from food packaging using this approach is already underway.
The proposed tests are a pragmatic and promising starting point that can evolve as new knowledge and testing technologies become available. Eventually, they may prove useful for better protecting consumers.
The study was conducted as part of the project CoModHaz, led by Prof. Beate Escher of UFZ. The project’s goal is to develop high-throughput, animal-free testing methods for the hazard screening of chemicals, their transformation products, and mixtures. FPF is a project partner in CoModHaz, together with regulators and industry stakeholders. This work contributes towards establishing New Approach Methodologies (NAMs) in regulatory chemical risk assessment.
Reference
Stevens et al. (2026). “Mapping disease-linked AOPs to inform bioassay selection for chemical hazard assessment.” Environment International. DOI: 10.1016/j.envint.2026.110465
