Mycotoxins under the Human Biomonitoring Initiative (HBM4EU): shedding light on the exposure of European citizens to Mycotoxins

The Human Biomonitoring Initiative HBM4EU (https://www.hbm4eu.eu/the-project/) is a joint effort of 30 countries and the European Environment Agency under the Horizon 2020 funding programme of the European Commission. The project started in 2017 and has a duration of five years. The goal of HBM4EU is to generate evidence on the current exposure of European citizens to chemicals and on their possible health effects in order to assess the associated risks. Further, this project should provide policy makers scientifically founded advice on chemical safety and human health protection. Following a systematic prioritization exercise, which brought together national and EU level policy needs for knowledge on chemical exposure and health outcomes, mycotoxins (Deoxynivalenol and Fumonisin B1) were in the 2nd prioritisation round considered as priority substances around which the HBM4EU research programme will be developed. Within the three pillars of the HBM4EU, namely, 1. Science to Policy, 2. European HBM (Human Biomonitoring) Platform and 3. Exposure and Health, answers to several identified policy questions related to mycotoxins exposure and effects will be debated, namely the current levels of human exposure (including exposure to mixtures) and time trends in Europe, geographical differences and highly exposed subgroups (including workers), the availability of toxicokinetics data, methods for analyzing mycotoxins and their metabolites in human samples, the potential for using effect biomarkers and their link to adverse outcomes, the use of biomonitoring data under a risk assessment framework and derivation of HBM guidance values. All these topics will be considered and explored, providing new evidences that will constitute important contributes for the mycotoxins risk assessment in the EU and abroad. Activities related to translation of exposure to policy (WP5), laboratory analysis and quality assurance (WP9), data management and analysis (WP10), from HBM to exposure (WP12), establishing exposure-health relationships (WP13), effect biomarkers (WP14) and mixtures and human health risk (WP15) will be developed within a joint effort of chemical group leaders for mycotoxins, members of the mycotoxin group at HBM4EU and different Work Package leaders . One of the most relevant planned activities is the possibility for providing new exposure data through the development of an aligned study enrolling several European countries. This will guarantee an update on the exposure assessment to the prioritized mycotoxins in the European population allowing a more accurate risk assessment. Work co-funded by the HBM4EU project, Grant Agreement No: 733032 and by Portuguese national funds: FCT/MEC - FEDER, within the PT2020 Partnership Agreement and Compete 2020 through CESAM (UID/AMB/50017/2019) and ToxOmics (UID/BIM/00009/2013). N/A