Another SafeCREW key result has now been published on the Horizon Results Platform: The integration of CALUX bioassays as early warning system for toxicity in complex water mixtures. Biodetection Systems (BDS) provides innovative, sensitive, and efficient in vitro test methods such as the CALUX® bioassays. In SafeCREW these human cell-based effect-based methods have been used to investigate the toxicity of disinfection by-products (DBPs), related chemicals, and chemical mixtures in drinking water for the first time.
Water samples from model systems and four drinking water treatment facilities in Milan, Italy, were analysed to evaluate several toxicity pathways, including cytotoxicity, genotoxicity, oxidative stress, endocrine disruption, PAH-like activity, obesity-related mechanisms, and PFAS-like thyroid hormone transport interference. These effect-based bioanalytical methods allow the detection of known, unregulated, and unknown pollutants and help assess mixture effects in water samples.
The results demonstrate that effect-based monitoring can provide a more comprehensive assessment of overall water toxicity than traditional chemical analysis. This approach supports safer and more sustainable drinking water monitoring, especially because many DBPs and emerging pollutants still lack sufficient toxicological data.
BDS aims at developing the application areas further and seeks collaboration with laboratories interested in exploring the potential of effect-based methods for a wide range of water pollutants, e.g. PFAS, hormones or pharmaceuticals.
Publication on the Horizon Results Platform
More information:
- SafeCREW Analytical Protocol #3 – Test protocol for effect-based in-vitro toxicity assessment of disinfection by-products,
DOI 10.5281/zenodo.18853699. - SafeCREW Policy Brief #1 – Advancing NAM/EBM for the Assessment of Disinfection By-Products and Complex Chemical Mixtures in Drinking Water, DOI 10.5281/zenodo.18847520.
- D1.3 Test protocol for effect-based in-vitro toxicity assessment of disinfection by products – public report.
- Behnisch, P., Besselink, H., Wullenweber, J., Cantoni, B., Antonelli, M., Ernst, M., Grieb, A. and Magna, M., LP-34 EU Safe Crew project for evaluating organohalogens (e.g. PFAS, DBPs) in drinking water in Milano (Italy) by using a panel of effect-based bioassays, Toxicology Letters, Volume 411, Supplement, 2025; P. S455,
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.toxlet.2025.07.1048. - SafeCREW resources