The EuroBioTox Project: Progress Towards the Detection and Identification of Biotoxins via Standardization, Training, and Method Evaluation

Dear Colleagues,

Recent incidents in Europe have highlighted that terrorists take an interest in the production of biotoxins, and that they have even succeeded in the production of toxic material. Previous studies have shown that there is a lack of robustness in Europe’s preparedness for biotoxin incidents. Therefore, the EuroBioTox project—funded under the EU’s Horizon 2020 program—consolidated an expert network comprising 63 institutions from 23 countries to strengthen Europe’s capabilities to cope with the intentional release of biotoxins, namely, saxitoxin, ricin, abrin, Staphylococcus aureus enterotoxin B (SEB), and botulinum neurotoxins (BoNTs).

EuroBioTox produced the world’s first ISO 17034:2016 certified reference materials (CRMs) for protein biotoxins relevant in the security field. This Special Issue describes the comprehensive characterization of CRMs for ricin, abrin, BoNT/A, BoNT/B, and SEB, which are now available to authorised expert laboratories worldwide. The CRMs significantly increase quality assurance measures in the field of biotoxin detection and allow for the development and comparative validation of novel methods, particularly animal replacement methods, which are still in place for some of the mentioned biotoxins. The CRMs also serve as analytes in a series of large international proficiency tests (PTs) organized by the EuroBioTox consortium to demonstrate the technical progress in biotoxin detection, identification, and quantification. First, previously recommended detection methods were trained and subsequently employed in the PTs. This approach resulted in a clear improvement in the analytical results obtained in a two-stage PT scheme. In the absence of regular self-assessment, the PT scheme offered participants an opportunity to self-evaluate their analytical capabilities and to obtain or maintain an accreditation.

With respect to animal replacement methods for the detection of BoNTs, a comprehensive study evaluated the performance of in vitro and ex vivo methods on a wide panel of samples comprising C. botulinum neurotoxin sero- and subtypes spiked into representative clinical, food, and environmental matrices. The results highlighted superior animal replacement methods, which will help reduce animal experiments in the field of botulism diagnostics, directly supporting Directive 2010/63/EU on the protection of animals.

A review article in this Special Issue summarizes the major achievements of the EuroBioTox project, putting them into context, and sheds light on the future avenues for biotoxin detection.

Dr. Andreas Rummel
Dr. Brigitte G. Dorner
Guest Editors

Publisher’s notice:

As stated above, the central purpose of this Special Issue is to present research from the EuroBioTox Project. Given this purpose, the Guest Editors’ contribution to this Special Issue may be greater than outlined in MDPI’s Special Issue guidelines (https://www.mdpi.com/special_issues_guidelines). The Editorial Office and Editor-in-Chief of Toxins has approved this Topic and MDPI’s standard manuscript editorial processing procedure (https://www.mdpi.com/editorial_process) will be applied to all submissions. As per our standard procedure, Guest Editors are excluded from participating in the editorial process for their submission and/or for submissions from persons with whom a potential conflict of interest may exist. More details on MDPI’s Conflict of Interest policy for reviewers and editors can be found here: https://www.mdpi.com/ethics#_bookmark22.

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