The OECD Environmental, Health and Safety (EHS) Programme has been helping member countries to make better use of increased knowledge of how chemicals induce adverse effects in humans and wildlife, through the so-called Adverse Outcome Pathways.
What's new?
Seven AOPs were recently published in iLibrary, following scientific review and OECD endorsement:
No. 29: Oxidative DNA damage leading to chromosomal aberrations and mutations | Authors: Eunnara Cho, Ashley Allemang, Marc Audebert, Vinita Chauhan, Stephen Dertinger, Giel Hendriks, Mirjam Luijten, Francesco Marchetti, Sheroy Minocherhomji, Stefan Pfuhler, Daniel J. Roberts, Kristina Trenz, Carole L. Yauk
What is an Adverse Outcome Pathway?
The OECD launched a new programme on the development of Adverse Outcome Pathways (AOP) in 2012. An AOP is an analytical construct that describes a sequential chain of causally linked events at different levels of biological organisation that lead to an adverse health or ecotoxicological effect (see figure below). AOPs are the central element of a toxicological knowledge framework being built to support chemical risk assessment based on mechanistic reasoning.
Schematic representation of the AOP illustrated with reference to a number of pathways
Watch our video: OECD work on Adverse Outcome Pathway
The Advisory Group on Emerging Science in Chemicals Assessment (ESCA) oversees the essential elements of the AOP Programme. This group works towards the development of AOPs with the support of and in close collaboration with the AOP-KB Coordination Group and of the Society for the Advancement of AOPs (SAAOP). The latter serves as the primary interface between the OECD ESCA and the broader AOP community of practice.
A new online version of the Developers' Handbook is available from the AOP Wiki. It provides practical guidance and should be followed for developing an AOP in the AOP-Wiki platform.
AOP-relevant projects can be proposed by scientists from OECD member countries for review by ESCA. Complete the form to submit an AOP project proposal. The AOP-Wiki is regularly updated to provide the OECD status of each AOP.
Representation of the AOP Development Process at the OECD
Cooperation on scientific review and AOP publication
The OECD is developing co-operation with Scientific Journals for the review and publication of AOPs.
This cooperation is formalised in the signature of a Memorandum of understanding (MOU). Scientific Journal Signatories take part in the scientific review of AOPs relevant to their field of expertise, with the view to achieve the following common objectives:
Increase the rate of AOP scientific reviews;
Offer the opportunity for journals to get more submissions for scientific articles;
Enable a double recognition through AOP publications in the scientific literature and at the OECD.
The OECD's AOP Knowledge Base tools, constantly developed and refined, are a web-based platform which aims to bring together all knowledge on how chemicals can induce adverse effects, therefore providing a focal point for AOP development and dissemination.
The e AOP Portal is the main entry point of the AOP Knowledge Base. The Portal enables search by keywords in AOP titles and key events in the AOP Wiki. It houses the status of all AOPs in the OECD Work Plan and the official copy of OECD endorsed AOPs.
The AOP Wiki represents a joint effort between the European Commission - DG Joint Research Centre (JRC) and U.S Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). It represents the central repository for all AOPs developed as part of the OECD AOP Development Programme and provides a system that organises, via crowd-sourcing, the available knowledge and published research into a verbal description of individual pathways, using a user-friendly Wiki interface. Information on AOP is collected in a qualitative and narrative way.
Missed our previous webinars on AOPs? Watch the video recordings
Adverse Outcome Knowledge Base (AOP-KB) and AOP developing tips - Thursday 30 January 2020 The third webinar on Adverse Outcome Pathways (AOPs) focused on the core information and telecommunication technologies applications that were built to support AOP development, management and dissemination. Tools and technical tips to facilitate scientific knowledge assembling and evaluations were also presented. The AOP framework implements a collaborative and innovative approach for collecting mechanistic knowledge from various sources that can eventually support chemical safety assessment.
Adverse Outcome Pathways: Assembling and evaluating weight of evidence and quantitative understanding - Wednesday 15 January 2020 This second webinar on Adverse Outcome Pathways (AOPs) focused on the importance of weight of evidence in the process of developing AOPs, the types and lines of evidences assembled, examples demonstrating the lines of evidence and understanding why quantitative AOPs are developed. The AOP framework is a collaborative tool that applies an innovative approach for collecting mechanistic knowledge from various sources that can eventually support chemical safety assessment.
Adverse Outcome Pathways Framework - Tuesday 30 April 2019 This first webinar on Adverse Outcome Pathways (AOPs) discussed the Adverse Outcome Pathway (AOP) framework. The AOP framework is a collaborative tool that applies an innovative approach for collecting mechanistic knowledge from various sources that can eventually support chemical safety assessment.
The OECD Test Guidelines Programme for the identification of new biomaker endpoints and in vitro test methods that are candidates to become part of OECD Test Guidelines.
Hazard Assessment Activities
The OECD Hazard Assessment activities for the development of Integrated Approaches to Testing and Assessment (IATA, using AOPs as a framework. The OECD QSAR project for the identification of new methods/profilers for grouping chemicals.