Food Toxicology: Toxicity and Risk Assessment of Unavoidable Chemicals in Food

Registration deadline: 6 April 2025

Exam date: 5 June 2025

Please note that the dates for the academic year of 2024-2025 are yet to be confirmed, so they might still change.

Target audience

To be able to participate in the course, you are expected to have at least a BSc level of education in Food Science and Technology or a related field, such as Chemical Engineering or Biotechnology.

The language of instruction of this course is in English. Admission to the course requires a level of English as described at the webpage linked in the right-hand column.

Learning outcomes

After successful completion of this programme, you will be able to:

• Perform your own risk and safety assessment on unavoidable chemicals in food.
• Explain the difference between avoidable and unavoidable chemicals of concern in food.
• Perform risk assessment for both non-genotoxic and genotoxic carcinogens.
• Determine which type of unavoidable chemicals are relevant to consider.

Programme

This course will give an overview of the necessary chemicals in food that need toxicity data for safe use. This includes harmful substances like pollutants and metals, toxins from nature, and products from heating food. Unavoidable chemicals in food may consist of genotoxic carcinogens for which the risk assessment has to be performed in a specific way. The course will explain how a risk assessment can be performed for the different types of unavoidable chemicals in food.

Learning activities:

• Knowledge clips to explain the basic principles
• Distance tutorials on exercises related to risk and safety assessment of unavoidable chemicals in food and use of the relevant models
• Distance e-learning materials: both simple and complex further examples related to risk and safety assessment of unavoidable chemicals in food and use of the relevant models

Combining courses
When you want to learn more about food biotechnology and processing, other courses are interesting for you too. You can deepen your knowledge in a specific career field without completing a Master's programme. You can register for any combination, but please consider our suggestions in the right-hand column.

Examination

Participation in the remote proctored exam is optional. If you decide not to participate in the exam, you do not qualify for a certificate and/or Micro-credentials. The certificate is included in the course price. The date of examination is 6 June 2025.

Certification

Upon successful completion, a digital Micro-credentials certificate (EduBadge) with 3 study credits (ECTS) is issued. The EduBadge certifies the learning outcomes of short-term learning experiences, marking the quality of a course.