Technology for Growth

Wearing his grain storage hat, Ken will be involved in delivering a series of ‘Roadshows’ at various venues in England in early 2008, on behalf of the Home-Grown Cereals Authority (HGCA) and the Assured Combined Crop Scheme (ACCS).  The title of the event is ‘Mycotoxins and Grain Storage’ and his particular contribution is on ‘Cost-effective cooling’. 

  A book,  Quantitative Structure-Activity Relationship (QSAR) for Pesticide Regulatory Purposes stems from the experience of the EC funded project DEMETRA. This project combined institutes involved in the regulatory process of pesticides, industries of the sector and scientists to develop and offer original software for the prediction of ecotoxicity of pesticides. Nick was a member of the project team and was lead author on Chapter 3: "Characterization of chemical structures".

The next International Conference on Urban Pests will be held in the beautiful city of Budapest in July 2008.  The conference venue has been selected and we are very excited about the opportunity to take our science to wider access in Eastern Europe.  It promises to be not only a superb technical conference but also a fine cultural and social event.  For further information 

Regular readers of this site will know that we have been providing expert opinion and conducting some tests, in a legal case being heard in a Mauritian Court. The case is still in progress and unlikely to be resolved before 2008.

Nick was one of the experts who were asked to put together a campaign for “Sense About Science”, (www.senseaboutscience.org.uk)

The campaign is aimed at persuading celebrities to check their facts before they make statements about scientific issues in public. The flyer can be downloaded at: http://www.senseaboutscience.org.uk/pdf/ScienceForCelebrities.pdf

 The full text of the expert’s statements will become available on the Sense About Science website at some point.

We have agreed to deliver a number of specialist courses on developments in grain storage in the UK. Ken will be on hand at half and full day meetings held in Gloucestershire, Herefordshire, Northamptonshire and Kent during 2007.  Several are being supported by the UK’s Home-Grown Cereals Authority (HGCA) so if you think that you know a group of farmers or store keepers who would benefit from attending such a course, please contact us.

Nick is joint author of a book chapter entitled “A molecular modelling approach to predict the toxicity of compounds generated during heat treatment of food” in the book, “Acrylamide and other hazardous compounds in heat-treated foods” (Edited by K.Skog & J Alexander, Woodhead Publishing Ltd)

www.woodheadpublishing.com/en/book.aspx?bookID=900

New European legislation called REACH, (Registration, Evaluation and Authorisation of Chemicals), will make it mandatory for industrial chemicals to be tested for human and wildlife toxicity. It is estimated that over 30000 industrial chemicals used in Europe require additional safety testing to comply with modern environmental safety standards.

Ken has contributed to a Council of Europe Expert Committee report on the risks associated with various storage pests or contaminants. The report is due to be published later in 2007 and its main conclusions are that storage mycotoxins and mites may present risks to human health when raw materials and food ingredients are badly stored.

The European project DEMETRA , (Development of Environmental Modules for Evaluation of Toxicity of pesticide Residues in Agriculture), in which Nick was a project team member has been completed. The objective was to develop a set of computer models which use computational chemistry to predict the toxicity of new pesticides to a range of non-target animals. This information is required prior to the registration of a new pesticide and would normally be done with test animals, but this is now becoming unacceptable.