Job description
Are you a driven master student in toxicology eager to make a real impact on public health? The RIVM invites you to join our team for an exciting internship opportunity focused on uncharting the complexities of chemical mixtures and their effect on the immune system. Help us identify new substance combinations that pose a risk for immunosuppression, extending our understanding beyond PFAS. If you're ready to tackle critical questions about chemical risk assessment, data integration, and public health, this internship is for you!
About your internship: RIVM, as a partner in the European project PARC, is working to improve risk assessment for chemical mixtures by utilizing human biomonitoring data. A key focus of this work is a case study on developmental immunotoxicity, particularly concerning the effects of PFAS and other chemicals on the developing immune system.
During this internship, your aim is to identify relevant mixtures of substances with a concern for immunosuppression that exceeds the group of PFAS. To that end, you will work on the following questions:
- What would be an appropriate common assessment group for immunosuppression? And what different assays and evidence streams (in silico, in vitro, in vivo, and epidemiology) can inform whether a substance is to be included in or out of this common assessment group for immunosuppression?
- Which chemicals fit within this common assessment group for immunosuppression?
- What would be priority mixtures to focus on in risk assessment of immunosuppressive chemicals?
With regard to research question 1, you will use relevant background documents on grouping of chemicals and assessment of immunosuppressant chemicals. In addition, you will screen the scientific literature to identify other key relevant documents that help you to streamline assessment of chemicals and their potential common immunosuppressant effect.
With regard to research question 2, you will screen the identified evidence streams and categorize substances in or out of the common assessment group for immunosuppression. You will do this for the chemicals for which there is human biomonitoring information available in the project, or for which there will become human biomonitoring information available in the near future. You may employ manual screening techniques as well as innovative (like artificial intelligence-driven) screening techniques.
With regard to question 3, you will use relevant prioritization and grouping techniques such as sparse nonnegative matrix approximation (SNMU) to identify priority mixtures based on co-exposure to focus on in the risk assessment. The SNMU technique is an integrated feature in the Monte Carlo Risk Assessment (MCRA) toolbox. The aim is to identify mixtures in critical windows of exposure for the developing immune system, such as during pregnancy and early infancy.
This is a research internship between 6-9 months, for 32-40 hours per week. The starting time is flexible, but preferably in the fall-winter of 2025. Your internship will result in an internship report and contribution to a product of the PARC real-life mixtures project.
About the project: Risk assessment traditionally focuses on single chemicals to identify potential adverse effects on human health. However, humans are exposed daily to many chemicals. Evaluating the health risks of these chemical mixtures has become a priority as the effects from co-exposure can be additive or synergistic. Human biomonitoring information, which is the measurement of chemicals in biological matrices such as urine or blood, allows to study which mixtures individuals are exposed to. Not only from one source, but from many different products and sources combined.
The project is built around several case studies addressing regulatory prioritized adverse health effects, among which developmental immunotoxicity. The developing immune system is especially sensitive to effects of certain chemicals and pharmaceuticals. Prenatal exposure may result in immune effects after birth, such as immunosuppression, allergy, and autoimmunity. In the first years of the project, the developmental immunotoxicity case study was focused around PFAS and their effect on immunosuppression. However, not only PFAS but also other chemicals may affect the adaptive immune system.