VUB IVTD Research Group

Stay informed about the Joint 3R Symposium

Safety Assessment of Cosmetics in the EU

6-DAY TRAINING COURSE • 3-8 FEBRUARY 2025 • 6 ECTS
BRUSSELS, BELGIUM • ON CAMPUS

Our 2025 Lecturers

Dr. Nathalie Alépée
l’Oréal, FR

coming soon

Dr. Maria Baltazar
Unilever, UK

Maria Baltazar is currently a Science Leader at the Safety & Environmental Assurance Centre of Unilever responsible for leading research teams developing new approach methodologies (NAMs) applied to next generation risk assessment for systemic toxicity. She joined Unilever in 2016 as a risk assessor in the skin allergy and immunology field and from 2018 to 2022 she led the Inhalation Research Group which developed new methods for assessing lung toxicity using 3D tissue models and computational tools. Maria received her Msc and PhD in Pharmaceutical Sciences from the Faculty of Pharmacy from the University of Porto in Portugal. While in Portugal, she was an invited Assistant Professor at the Advanced Institute of Health Sciences (Gandra, Portugal) where she lectured Food Toxicology Analysis in the BSc degree in Forensic and Criminal Sciences for two years. After graduating in 2014, she joined the fast consumer goods company Imperial Brands as a risk assessor. Maria is a frequent invited speaker at international conferences and webinars and recipient of two awards from the Society of Toxicology Risk Assessment Specialty Section. She has been appointed as industry representative in international consortia (e.g., Texas A&M Tissue Chip Validation Consortium) and in trade associations, both Cosmetics Europe and the International Consortium on Cosmetic Safety where she is currently the chair of the Safety Decision Delivery Team. Maria’s research passion is to advance the application of non-animal methods for safety assessment and ultimate regulatory acceptance.

Dr. Ulrike Bernauer
German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (BfR), DE

Dr. Bernauer is a chemist by training and obtained her PhD degree in biochemical toxicology from the University of Wurzburg (Germany). During her doctorate she focussed on different aspects of chemical metabolism in animals and humans. She continued research at the German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (BfR) and its predecessor institute with a focus on interspecies and interindividual variability of xenobiotic metabolism using cell culture and ex vivo models. From research, she turned into the regulatory area where she gained broad experience in risk assessment of chemicals within different regulatory contexts (e.g. industrial chemicals, cosmetics, workplace safety) and on a variety of toxicological endpoints. Currently her focus is on chemicals under REACH as deputy head of the Chemical Safety Unit. She has been involved in the development of conceptual frameworks for risk assessment, in test method developments, guideline development and human biomonitoring projects. Apart from being a regulatory toxicologist at BfR’s Chemical Safety Unit she has been appointed as a member of European Commissions Scientific Committee on Consumer Safety (SCCS) in 2009 and was involved in the risk assessment of a broad range of cosmetic ingredients including nanomaterials. Since 2016, she is chair of the SCCS working group on nanomaterials in cosmetic products. Dr. Bernauer is involved as a teacher in a variety of training programs on toxicology and safety assessment.

Prof. Emanuela Corsini
Università degli Studi di Milano, IT

Emanuela Corsini is a tenured full professor in toxicology at the School of Pharmacy at the Università degli Studi di Milano, Milan, Italy. As such, she organizes and teaches courses in the field of Toxicology at the School of Pharmacy and the School of Environmental Sciences, University of Milan. She has been active in training undergraduate and graduate students at her own university and has also developed and presented lectures for other academic institutions and professional societies. Her research focuses on the refinement of alternative in vitro tests for immunotoxicity, promoting the regulatory acceptance of alternative methods, and on the understanding the mechanism of action of immunotoxic/immunomodulatory compounds at the molecular level. Dr. Corsini has served on multiple ECVAM and ICCVAM Panels and Working groups to establish scientific confidence in alternative methods in immunotoxicology testing, performance standards for these novel assays and the development of integrated testing strategies for their use as part of comprehensive and predictive assessments. She has authored over 190 research publications in toxicology and related disciplines. She is active in numerous scientific and professional organizations and serves on several editorial boards of toxicology journals.

Prof. Axelle Cooreman
Vrije Universiteit Brussel, BE

coming soon

Dr. Matthew Dent
Unilever, UK

Matt Dent has worked in toxicology for over 25 years in several roles, and is currently a Science Leader in Unilever’s Safety and Environmental Assurance Centre where he leads the application of new approaches to toxicological risk assessment. He has served on several task forces and working groups, including with the OECD and ECVAM. He has published several peer-reviewed articles, mostly on the development and use of non-animal approaches for safety assessment.

Dr. Rolf Fautz
Europe Research Laboratories (EURL), KAO Group, DE

Biologist/Zoologist; Thesis in Genetic Toxicology (Technical University of Darmstadt 1987) Doctor in Biology/Zoology; Thesis in Immunotoxicology (Technical University of Darmstadt 1991) European Registered Toxicologist (since 2002)

Dr. Anne Fuchs
Europe Research Laboratories (EURL), KAO Group, DE

Food Chemistry at the University of Kaiserslautern ; Thesis: Research on DNA- polymerase stops caused by selected N-nitrosoureas. Dr.rer.nat. at the University of Kaiserslautern, 1995 in the subject area: food chemistry and ecotoxicology with the thesis: N-nitroso-diethanolamine- analytic, study on inhibition and research on metabolic activation. European Registered Toxicologist (since 2005)

Dr. Carsten Goebel
Wella Company, DE

Carsten Goebel is currently leading the global product safety and regulatory affairs team at the Wella Company. This includes human safety leadership for the innovation program requiring toxicological research in the areas of skin sensitization and metabolism. He is a member of the German Society of Toxicology (DGPT)/EUROTOX and Immunology (DGfI) and a certified expert in both areas. He received his Ph.D. in Biology from the University of Düsseldorf, Germany, where his research focused on adverse immune effects of anti-rheumatic drugs including aromatic amines and the corresponding role of metabolic polymorphism. During his post-doc assignment, he was responsible for projects assessing the effect of xenobiotics on the immune system.
Currently, Carsten Goebel’s research is focused on better understanding the different exposure conditions of skin sensitization hazard and potency testing conditions (LLNA, HRIPT, diagnostic patch testing) compared to product use conditions with the goal to further refine current non-animal approaches for skin sensitization risk assessment. He has many peer-reviewed publications to his name and has published in journals including Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology, the British Journal of Dermatology and the Journal of Investigative Dermatology. Some of his most recent research established a new approach to quantitative risk assessment for skin sensitization of hair dye ingredients. This concept has been successfully applied to support the development of less sensitizing alternative hair dye molecules, such as 2-methoxymethyl-p-pehnylenediame, to improve the protection of hairdressers and hair color users from allergic contact dermatitis.

Prof. An Goossens
Catholic University Leuven (KU Leuven), BE

Prof. em. An Goossens became associated professor in 1990 and professor in 1996 at the Faculty of Medicine (KU Leuven), and was also, until 2011, guest professor at the Faculty of Pharmacy at the University of Antwerp. She was teaching dermato-cosmetics to pharmacists and medical students, specialization courses in contact dermatitis to dermatology residents and occupational dermatoses to occupational physicians. In October 2016, she retired as an “Emeritus professor with duties”, still giving courses to students in the Faculties of Medicine and Pharmaceutical Sciences (KU Leuven) until 2020. In 1982, she got a permanent position as a scientific co-worker in the Department of Dermatology (KU Leuven), where she became the head of the Contact allergy unit and has trained many national and international dermatology residents in this field. She also worked as an expert for the Federal Agency of Occupational Risks (FEDRIS) for patients with occupational dermatoses. She has been promotor of five doctoral theses and author or co-author of more than 400 articles in international peer reviewed scientific journals as well as of several book chapters. She was often invited to national and international congresses in the field of allergy and contact dermatitis. She is member and/or honorary member of the national and many international dermatological societies and member of the editorial board of scientific journals. She received several international awards, among which the International League of Dermatologic Societies (ILDS) Certificate of appreciation (2016).

Dr. Martine Grosber
Universitair Ziekenhuis Brussel, BE

Martine Grosber is head of the dermatology and allergology outpatient units of the University Hospital Brussels (UZ Brussel) since 2013. She studied medicine in Innsbruck (AT) and specialized in Dermatology in major university hospitals in Freiburg (D), Paris (F) and Munich (D). Her special interests are inflammatory skin diseases and allergies. She is member of the EAACI Drug Allergy Interest Group and the Belgian Contact and Environmental Dermatitis Group (BCEDG). She is a clinical tutor for dermatology at the Vrije Universiteit Brussels and full time supervisor for dermatology residents in the academic teaching hospital UZ Brussels. She organizes symposia on inflammatory skin diseases and allergies for general practitioners and dermatologists on a regular basis.

Prof. Nynke Kramer
Wageningen University, NL

Since 1 September 2021, Nynke Kramer is associate professor in toxicology at the Toxicology Division of the Agrotechnology and Food Sciences group of Wageningen University. She teaches toxicology, toxicokinetics and (eco)toxicological risk assessment at undergraduate, graduate, and postgraduate level. Before starting at Wageningen University, she was assistant professor in toxicology at the Institute for Risk Assessment Sciences (IRAS) of Utrecht University, where she also obtained her PhD in 2010. Her research focusses on enhancing the uptake of in vitro models in chemical safety assessment by developing models extrapolating toxic concentrations in in vitro cell assays to toxic doses relevant to humans and animals. Her research has led to over forty peer-reviewed publications identifying physiological and chemical parameters underlying the accumulation of toxicants in cells in the body and in in in vitro toxicity assays. Illustratively, Nynke’s research has been awarded the SETAC Procter and Gamble Fellowship for Doctoral Research in Environmental Sciences. She used the prize money to do part of her research at the Swiss Federal Institute for Aquatic Science and Technology, Eawag, Dübendorf, Switzerland. Before starting her PhD, Nynke obtained her BSc degree in Life Sciences at University College Utrecht and her MSc degree in Environmental Change and Management at the University of Oxford. She currently is board member of INVITROM, the Dutch/Belgian Society on In Vitro Methods, and the in2TOX specialty section of EUROTOX, the Federation of European Toxicologist, as well as associate editor for Chemosphere.

Dr. Amelie Ott
ICCS, US

Dr Amelie Ott is an experienced scientist and manager, leading international projects to assess the environmental safety of chemicals including cosmetics. She is currently the Director, Environmental Sciences at the International Collaboration on Cosmetics Safety (ICCS) where she is tasked with overseeing the strategic development and tactical management of their environmental science program. ICCS is a global, non-for-profit multi-stakeholder research organization dedicated to advancing animal-free safety assessments for cosmetics, covering human and environmental health.

Before this role, she worked at the European personal care trade association, Cosmetics Europe as an Environmental Sciences Manager and as a scientist at Newcastle University, co-leading the validation and standardization of a new biodegradation method. She also worked as a parliamentary researcher for the UK Parliament and as a scientific secretary consultant for the European Centre for Ecotoxicology and Toxicology of Chemicals (ECETOC). She is still a visiting researcher at Newcastle University, representing the UK in an OECD Expert Group. She is an active member of the Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (SETAC). She holds a Ph.D. in environmental engineering on emerging contaminants from Newcastle University.

Dr. Gerald Renner
Cosmetics Europe, BE

Dr. Gerald Renner was born in Graz (Austria) in 1967. His basic scientific training is in engineering chemistry at the Technische Universität Graz, where he graduated in 1993. After that he specialised in biochemical engineering and worked for his PhD at the Technische Universität Graz, and the Ecole Polytechnique de Montréal. He finished his doctoral studies on the bacterial production of biodegradable plastics in 1996. After additional courses in animal cell culture techniques and immunology at the Université Libre de Bruxelles, he joined the Colipa (now Cosmetics Europe) Scientific department at the end of 1996. Since 2001 he is Cosmetic Europe’s Director of Technical Regulatory Affairs which includes since 2010 also the association s activities on international regulatory convergence.

Prof. Vera Rogiers
Vrije Universiteit Brussel, BE

After many years of leading the department of In Vitro Toxicology and Dermato-Cosmetology at the VUB in a successful way, Emeritus professor in Toxicology Vera Rogiers is actually still teaching dermato-cosmetics at the VUB and the University of Ghent. She also gives a limited number of lessons to the University of Namur. She yearly organizes international courses on Cosmetics and Risk Assessment. She is the Director of the Innovation Centre-3Rs (IC-3Rs) at the VUB and of the scientific Chair Mireille Aerens, both with focus on replacing experimental animals by novel technologies. At the EU level, she is co-chair of the Scientific Committee on Consumer Safety (SCCS) and member of the Mirror group of the European Partnership on Alternative Approaches to Animal Testing (EPAA). Her main research activity was many years situated in the development of in vitro models as an alternative to the use of experimental animals. Actual focus is on the differentiation of human skin-derived stem cells to functional hepatic cells and their application for drug discovery and the detection of drug-induced liver injury. She has been promoter of 33 doctoral theses, is author or co-author of >380 publications in international peer reviewed scientific journals and is editor of several scientific books. She is an often-invited speaker (>350) and participated in the organization of more than 60 international congresses. She has coordinated 2 EU research projects and was partner in several FP6, FP7 EU and Horizon 2020 research projects concerned with in vitro methodology development. Of the obtained scientific results, several patents have been filed. Throughout her carrier she received several international scientific awards for her pioneering role in in vitro Experimental Toxicology.

Dr. Matthias Vey
IFRA, BE

Dr. Matthias Vey is a chemist by training from the Technical University of Darmstadt, Germany. After his studies and a short period of training as a perfumer he started in fragrance research and development for Marbert Cosmetics in Düsseldorf, Germany. He then became global regulatory affairs manager for Coty/Lancaster in Mainz, Germany.

In 2000 Dr. Vey joined IFRA. As Vice President Scientific Affairs, he is responsible for the fragrance industry's worldwide safe use program, known as the IFRA Standards. He also manages all of IFRA's science related committees and is involved in IFRA's advocacy activities. He is responsible for the management of the International Dialogue on the Evaluation of Allergens (IDEA), a multi-stakeholder initiative. He regularly presents at international meetings and conferences.