Prof. Mirjam Luijten is senior researcher in the field of next-generation risk assessment, an innovative approach for assessing health risks that chemicals may pose to humans. She works as a scientific researcher at RIVM’s Centre for Health Protection and is a professor by special appointment in Human-relevant Risk Assessment of Chemicals at Leiden University’s Leiden Academic Centre for Drug Research (LACDR).

Mirjam is well-versed in next-generation risk assessment. This approach combines a variety of (test) methods and tools, such as computational models and in vitro assays. These methods are selected based on mechanisms that substances may perturb in the human body. The primary focus of her research is on non-genotoxic carcinogens: substances that cause cancer through other mechanisms than damaging a person’s DNA. As part of this, she develops testing strategies that do not involve animal testing and that can eventually be used as part of the process to permit chemicals for use in products such as cosmetics, pesticides and medicines.

Areas of Expertise

  • Next-generation risk assessment, an innovative approach for assessing health risks that chemicals may pose to humans
  • Carcinogenicity and genetic toxicity
  • Toxicological mechanisms of substances (Adverse Outcome Pathways)
  • Testing strategies and risk assessment

Additional functions

  • Professor by special appointment at Leiden University
  • Member of the Genetic Toxicology Technical Committee of the Health and Environmental Sciences Institute
  • Member of the International Workshop on Genotoxicity Testing (IWGT)
  • Member of the OECD Expert Group on Integrated Approaches to Testing and Assessment of Non-Genotoxic Carcinogens
  • Member of the board of the Genetic Toxicology section of the Dutch Society of Toxicology

Publications

Publications can be found at Google Scholar.