Contaminants and Residues in Food

Maria Bastaki is a Toxicologist and a Scientific Officer in the Methodology & Scientific Support Unit of the Risk Assessment Services Department of EFSA in Parma since 2020. She is the scientific coordinator of working groups of the EFSA Scientific Committee on cross-cutting chemical risk assessments and risk-benefit assessments. Her work focuses on hazard assessment of chemicals and health risks from exposure to chemicals relevant to food, based on mode-of-action and weight of evidence approaches. She is interested in health risk assessments that address multiple chemical exposures and the potential of toxicokinetic and/or toxicodynamic interactions.

Benedikt Cramer is working at the Institute of Food Chemistry at the University of Münster as Head of the Service Unit “Instrumental analysis and spectroscopy”. The focus of his research is the impact of food processing on contaminants such as mycotoxins or furans. In addition, Benedikt Cramer is working on the development of new analytical methods for the determination of mycotoxins, their degradation products and their metabolites in various matrices.

Peter Fürst retired as the Director from the CVUA-MEL (Chemical and Veterinary Analytical Institute Münsterland-Emscher-Lippe) in March 2019 and now works part-time at the University of Münster as a Honorary Professor. He joined the EFSA CONTAM Panel from 2006 to 2015 where he was Vice-Chair from 2012 to 2015. Since 2018 he has been a member of the EFSA FAF Panel.

Peter Fürst retired as the Director from the CVUA-MEL (Chemical and Veterinary Analytical Institute Münsterland-Emscher-Lippe) in March 2019 and now works part-time at the University of Münster as a Honorary Professor. He joined the EFSA CONTAM Panel from 2006 to 2015 where he was Vice-Chair from 2012 to 2015. Since 2018 he has been a member of the EFSA FAF Panel.

Bettina Grasl-Kraupp is a Professor and a European Registered Toxicologist and leads the Research Unit “Chemical safety and cancer prevention” at the Institute for Cancer Research of the Medical University of Vienna. She is a member of several scientific societies and since 2014 she has been a member of the EFSA CONTAM Panel and is the Chair of the WG on Glycoalkaloids.

Rüdiger Helling worked as Head of the Food Contact Materials and Consumer Goods Section at the Saxon State Laboratory for Public and Veterinary Health for 14 years and is member of several scientific advisory committees. In his current position as Head of Division at the Saxon State Ministry for Social Affairs and Cohesion he is responsible for the whole diversity of not only contaminants in food.

Ron Hoogenboom is the Assistant Programme Leader Food Contaminants at Wageningen Food Safety Research, dealing with environmental contaminants, pesticides and toxins from moulds, algae and plants. Since 2012 he has been a member of the EFSA CONTAM Panel and was the vice-chair of the WG on PFAS.

Friedrich Klapdor is the Head of Section for Food Safety and responsible for food safety in the Food Safety and Veterinary Office at the Hamburg Authority for Justice and Consumer Protection (BJV).

Raquel Medeiros has been the Head of Food Safety – Chemical Contaminants and Packaging - at Nestlé since 2022: She is a Quality Food Safety leader with over 19 years of experience from R&D to Operations across multiple countries and product categories. She focuses on a continuous improvement mindset and risk assessment approach driving simplicity in Quality and Food Safety systems.

Britta Müller is a Veterinarian and the Coordinator of the early warning system aimed at early identification of potential health risks and fraudulent practices in the food sector at the Bavarian Health and Food Safety Authority (LGL). She is involved in designing new control strategies.

Sadat Nawaz is Head of UK National Reference Laboratory at Fera Science, based in York, UK. Sadat has worked at Fera for over 25 years. He has travelled extensively to Europe, Africa, Asia and South America to provide training and consultancy on pesticides residues analysis and setting up monitoring programmes. His current interests include development of efficient, and cost-effective strategies for analyses of pesticides in food and environmental samples.

Linda Schreiner is a Food Chemist and has been working in the food sector at the Bavarian Health and Food Safety Authority (LGL) since 2020. She is involved in the investigation and legal evaluation of different contaminants in food and water. In 2015 she joined the Fraunhofer Institute for Process Engineering and Packaging (IVV) as a PhD student and later the Chair of Aroma and Smell Research of the Friedrich-Alexander-University of Erlangen-Nürnberg.

Dieter Schrenk has been a Professor for Food Chemistry and Environmental Toxicology at the University of Kaiserslautern since 1996. In 2005 he took on the full professorship for Food Chemistry and Toxicology. He joined the EFSA CONTAM Panel in 2003. Since 2018 he has been the Chair of this panel.

Holger Sieg is a Biochemist and a Scientist in the Unit \"Effect-based Analytics and Toxicogenomics\" in the Food Safety Department at the German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (BfR) in Berlin. His projects conduct research concerning the uptake and effects of orally ingested nanomaterials on the human body, with focus on the intestine and liver.

Richard Stadler is the Head of the Institute for Food Safety & Analytical Science at Nestlé in Lausanne. Richard has held several research and quality management positions within Nestlé. He is also the Chairman of the FoodDrinkEurope contaminants expert group.

Michele Suman is the Head of the Food Safety & Authenticity Research Unit at Barilla, working in an international context on research projects within the field of food chemistry, food safety-quality-authenticity, food contact materials, sensing and mass spectrometry applications. He is the Chair of the Italian National Normative Organization (UNI) Food Authenticity Working Group, the Vicechair of the ILSI Food Contaminants Task Force and Coordinator of Quality-Food Safety Pillar - Italian National Cluster Agrifood Scientific Board. Finally, he is Adjunct Professor of AgriFood Authenticity at Catholic University Sacred Heart – Milan/Piacenza.

Veerle Vanheusden is a Policy Officer in DG SANTE of the European Commission. She joined the European Commission in 2013, where she worked for four years in the Unit “Pesticides and Biocides”. In 2017 she moved to the Unit dealing with food processing technologies and novel foods, where her main area of activity is the EU policy and legislation on contaminants. She has previously worked in the private pharmaceutical sector.

Frans Verstraete works in the European Commission in the Direction General SANTE and is responsible for legislation on contaminants.