President’s Newsletter: July 2026
Dear Colleagues
Did you get the three little words in the last newsletter? Lectin, ribosome, umbrella. It should have been relatively easy – ricin. Ricin is lectin which is a class of carbohydrate containing protein, it causes toxicity by inhibition protein translation through a modification of the 28S ribosomal subunit. It is more toxic when injected (or inhaled) and this route was used in the assignation of Bulgarian Georgi Markov with administration via a modified umbrella.
As you head off for your well-deserved summer holidays, I am sure you will need some suitable beach reading. In which case can I recommend the BTS strategy 2026-28 (it is a best seller). This strategy ( https://www.thebts.org/information/policies-strategies/) is an update on the strategy developed in 2024 and includes some elements from the 2020 strategy. There has been a minor change to the mission statement to make it more definitive. The first two words in the original mission statement were ‘To provide …’ and these have changed to ‘As the..’ so the whole mission statement now reads ‘As the principal forum for toxicology in the UK, we support and enrich the careers of toxicologists and promote the importance and advancement of toxicology in the wider scientific and lay communities’. The strategy which underpins this still contains the original three pillars of Inclusive, Collaborative and Inspirational. Additionally, there is one new pillar: Sustainable. This pillar addresses both the BTS itself in terms of its sustainability and ensuring that the BTS is sustainable in terms of its impact on global resources. Achieving both objectives requires a focus on succession planning, governance, finance and globally ensuring our activities align with relevant UN sustainability goals. Within the other pillars there has been some consolidation of the foundations which are the activities that are supported by the pillar. One foundation has been added to the Inclusive pillar – respect and debate all options. As a Society I think we do this well but in a global context this appears to be an issue so myself and the Executive Committee thought it important to include this to ensure continued good practice. All the foundations are important, but some are already well established and require a watching brief rather than action. For those requiring action there are some foundations I want to focus on initially and these may change with time. Most of these are under the Inspirational and Sustainability pillars and the training foundation needs specific support where there is still a clear deficit of opportunities in the UK. My thanks to the Executive Committee for all their input into the strategy. It went through quite a few drafting rounds. Drinks on me when we get together.
This year we will be bidding at the 2026 EUROTOX Congress in Vienna to host the 2030 EUROTOX Congress in Birmingham. Professor Ruth Roberts will be leading the bid this year and we are up against Serbia. Ruth and her colleagues at ApconiX have kindly provided a set of snap cards with avatar images of Ruth, myself, your VP Fiona, your General Secretary Shirley, Marion MacFarlane and Heather Wallace. Other European Society leads are going to be sent one card from the pack and if they can find the relevant person at the Congress they win the full pack of snap cards. The inspiration for that one required some real lateral thinking. Well done team and to Cynara Hurter at ApconiX for designing the cards.
I hope you all have an enjoyable holiday with the evocative smell of sunscreen and coconut flavoured beverages (please be aware of the Committee on Carcinogenesis statement 2015-S2).
For further amusement try these three words while not watching the kids in the swimming pool (tough challenge). Maybe slightly harder than the last one but not much. The clue is above.
Soleil; Blanc; Nanoparticles.
With best wishes
Tim
Professor Tim Gant
President BTS
