Working Group 4

Risk Assessment and Dissemination.

 
 
The current allergy risk assessment strategy is not satisfactory, because it is not complete (missing data on effect of processing, exposure, effect on immune cells, protein transport, sensitizing properties, etc.) and often lacks good interpretable results. The Action will therefore bring into focus the current state of the art of allergy risk assessment, what are the missing links and which tools are not useful and can be omitted and what could be usefully added? Other topics to focus on are:   how an unacceptable rate of sensitisation to a novel protein (concept of rare vs. common allergens) can be defined, how the results from the above mentioned topics can be implemented in the risk assessment strategy, how the regulatory authorities can be involved in this concept and disseminate this to food companies and how the generated knowledge can be used in the development of new safe food products.

Scientific Work Plan, Methods and Means

Working Group 4 will collect data on the current state of the art in allergy risk assessment and critically discuss the applied strategies. The pros and cons of the current strategies will be listed. Based on these findings, the data and knowledge gaps will be identified. The WG will hypothesize on how the results of WG 1, 2 and 3 can be implemented in the current strategy and how an improved strategy will get approval from regulatory authorities and will be accepted within the food industry community.

Objectives will be attained by utilizing several means:

• ■ Discussion and exchange of results and knowledge within WG meetings planned during the 4-year Action. During these meetings also exchange             among Working Groups will be substantial.
• ■ Results of the meetings will be documented in annual reports and shared with all participants.
• ■ Organization of an annual conference, either linked to another conference or on its own with a broader scientific community to disseminate the            gained knowledge and to get feedback on the results of the Action.
• ■ Short-Term Scientific Missions of young scientists, PhD students, and Postdocs to learn and harmonize protocols.
• ■ Dissemination of information via LinkedIn discussion forum, dedicated website and publication of results in peer reviewed papers.
• ■ The partnership with the European Academy of Allergy and Clinical Immunology (EAACI) will maximize the impact of the dissemination to the                  stakeholders as well as of the Training Schools taking advantage of the EAACI network.

Representatives is this group are food scientists, physiologists, immunologists, risk assessors, clinicians, food companies, biochemists, toxicologists.

Working Group 4 Contacts