Toxicology

The science of poisons: the study of how toxic substances act, how their effects are detected, and how poisoning is treated. Toxicology is the evidence base for all chemical food safety — identifying hazards, characterizing dose–response relationships, estimating dietary exposure, and deriving safe limits such as ADIs and maximum residue levels. Regulatory toxicologists assess additives before approval, investigate poisoning incidents, and develop analytical methods that detect toxins at trace levels. The field increasingly combines mechanistic and computational approaches with animal studies, aiming to predict toxicity faster, with fewer animals, and with greater relevance to real human exposures.