New approaches offer cost-efficient and ethical risk assessment of forever Chemicals
NIVA Demonstrates how innovative testing strategies improve evaluation of emerging PFAS without relying on traditional laboratory animal testing.
- Written by
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Mari Susanne Solerød
- Key scientists
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You Song
A timely new study, led by senior research scientist You Song in Norwegian Institute for Water Research (NIVA), reveals how scientists can assess the risks of PFAS—the notorious "forever chemicals"—more efficiently and humanely by turning to modern testing tools that cut down the need for traditional animal testing.
The research, carried out together with Tsinghua University in China, tackles a pressing environmental challenge: how to judge the safety of new PFAS alternatives that are entering the market as older, well-known chemicals are phased out.
Understanding the PFAS Challenge
Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are a large family of synthetic chemicals used in everything from non-stick cookware to firefighting foams. Their exceptionally strong carbon-fluorine bonds make them extremely resistant to breaking down in the environment—hence the nickname “forever chemicals”.
− Their persistence, combined with how easily they move through water and ecosystems, and their potential toxicity, has led to growing concern, explains Dr. You Song, senior researcher at NIVA.
− Legacy PFAS such as PFOA are being phased out worldwide, but many replacement PFAS are now entering the market—and we still know relatively little about their environmental and health effects.
New Approach Methodologies (NAMs)
New Approach Methodologies (NAMs) are modern tools designed to evaluate chemical hazards without relying on traditional animal-based toxicity testing. These new methods include data modeling, cell-based analyses, high-capacity screening technologies, and molecular techniques that can detect early biological responses.
Modern approaches to chemical risk assessment
The study uses New Approach Methodologies (NAMs) − modern tools designed to evaluate chemical hazards without relying on traditional vertebrate-based toxicity testing.
− NAMs offer a more mechanistic, data-rich way to understand how chemicals affect living systems, often much faster and with far fewer ethical concerns than classical animal tests, notes Dr. Song.
The move toward these approaches reflects a broader shift in Europe. The EU has committed, through its Chemicals Strategy for Sustainability and related initiatives, to progressively reduce and ultimately replace laboratory animal testing, and is now developing roadmaps to accelerate this transition across regulatory sectors.
In this study, the research team applied an integrative NAM workflow to assess eight emerging PFOA alternatives. By combining multiple complementary test methods, they generated comprehensive toxicity data. derived effect concentrations and hazard thresholds, then compared these values with PFAS levels measured in wastewater and surface waters — helping connect laboratory findings to real-world exposure.
Implications for Regulation and Environmental Protection
− This work shows how NAMs can bring together different types of data to create a clear, science-based picture of PFAS hazards—and provide the threshold values regulators need to make informed decisions, says Dr. Song.
The findings demonstrate that next generation testing approaches can help scientists and regulators better understand and manage PFAS, supporting a shift toward more sustainable, ethical, and forward-looking environmental protection practices.
As regulators around the world increasingly consider NAMs in chemical safety and risk assessments, this study provides a practical example of how these newer approaches can be applied to evaluate the rising number of PFAS alternatives appearing in both global markets and the environment.