President’s Newsletter: September 2026
Dear BTS Members
I hope you had a pleasant summer break and are back, ready and refreshed for the year ahead!
The hot summer weather has done wonders for the grapes in my garden, which are the best they have ever been, and similarly for the courgettes, beans, tomatoes, dahlias and sunflowers – first prize in the local show for courgettes and one type of dahlias! I was fortunate to be able to get in a little clay pigeon shooting with a 90% success rate, not bad for an amateur, one highlight for my summer.
Did you get the three little words? The answer you should have reached was titanium dioxide. Soleil et blanc, “sun and white”, and ‘nanoparticles’ provided the clues. The reference to holidays pointed towards the sun, and therefore sun protection, one of the uses for titanium dioxide. Additionally, titanium dioxide is well known for its whiteness as a pigment and is used in paints, while nanoparticles are one formulation that has caused toxicological concern.
This gives me the opportunity to highlight the work of our excellent government expert committees, on which many of you serve. The toxicity of titanium dioxide, and particularly its potential mutagenicity, has been a contentious issue. It is in circumstances such as this that the value of expert committees is really demonstrated.
Titanium dioxide was considered by the Committee on Toxicity of Chemicals in Food, Consumer Products and the Environment (COT) in relation to its safety as a food additive in 2021. The COT is currently chaired by BTS member the Reverend Professor Lesley A. Stanley. The Committee on Mutagenicity of Chemicals in Food, Consumer Products and the Environment (COM) further considered the potential mutagenicity of titanium dioxide in 2024. The COM is currently chaired by Professor Gareth Jenkins.
These are only two of several government committees whose opinions and expertise bring credibility and confidence to UK risk assessments of the potential human-health effects of chemical exposure from all sources. The BTS is proud to count many members and chairs of these committees among its membership.
Currently, as you will have seen from a recent email, there are a number of vacancies on the FSA committees. The FSA are seeking individuals with a broad range of scientific knowledge, skills, and experience including pathology, neurotoxicity, microbiology, proteomic and metabolomic analysis, animal feed safety and chemical contaminants in food. I encourage you to consider applying. More information can be found here.
Given the importance attached by the public and government to understanding the effects of chemicals on humans, plants and animals, known as One Health (https://www.who.int/health-topics/one-health#tab=tab_1), I have recently become concerned about the limited support for Toxicology education and training in the UK, particularly at tertiary levels.
The BTS recognised this issue in its report, led by Dr Sarah Judge, in 2022. This led to the establishment of the Skills Gap Initiative, which has been led by Professor Shirley Price and Dr David Andrew and has been successful beyond expectations. The skills gap initiative develops applied skills in toxicology but does not progress to doctoral training. The rationale for this was that doctoral-level training was provided by the Integrative Toxicology Training Partnership (ITTP), led by Professor Anne Willis and Dr Kirsti Hornigold from the MRC Toxicology Unit which has recently closed to new students without to date a suitable replacement.
Given the importance of toxicology to many sectors of the UK economy, including pharmaceuticals, chemicals, agrochemicals and cosmetics, this shortage of doctoral Toxicology training is a concern. There are pressures on scientific funding from all sources and the BTS acknowledges this. However, supporting Toxicology training to include doctoral level is an investment in the future and will develop capability and resource of long-term benefit to the UK economy.
The Executive Committee will be meeting in October and we are looking forward to seeing the first draft of the programme for the Annual BTS Congress, which will be held in Birmingham again this year. The dates are 19–21 April 2027, so please put them in your diary now!
With the help of our Executive Business Support team, with particular thanks to Phil Baker, we now have our own Exchange server and email domain. As a result, the main email contact has moved from a .com domain to .org and is now bts@thebts.org. Not all the forms on the website have yet been updated from bts@execbs.com to bts@thebts.org. In the interim, the former address will forward messages to the latter.
This change provides all account holders with access to Microsoft tools, including Teams, Office and shared storage. We hope this will not only provide greater security and resilience but also improve communication. This change has also highlighted the need for a policy and standard operating procedure governing the use of these accounts, and these are currently being drafted. The President is now using the email address President@thebts.org.
I hope you have all had the opportunity to view the BTS Strategy 2026–28, which is available here.
I will highlight parts of the strategy in each Presidential Letter going forward. In this letter, I would like to focus on the themes of clear leadership, succession planning, finance and governance, which appear under the “Sustainable” section on the final slide.
What are we doing in this area? As mentioned above, the General Secretary and I have reviewed the risk register. With the help of Dr Haz Matar, we have reviewed membership, and as mentioned above we have developed a new Exchange server for the BTS.
All open positions are advertised on the BTS website. I would like to encourage you to consider whether you could undertake one of these roles and, if so, nominate yourself. The BTS relies on voluntary effort; without it, the Society simply would not function.
There have been accusations in the past that senior positions within the BTS are dominated by the same group of individuals. To a certain extent, this is true. However, these are the people who have volunteered.
Volunteering can be challenging alongside a day job and family commitments, and I recognise this as someone who volunteers not only with the BTS but also elsewhere while balancing a demanding paid position. Nevertheless, I have always found that the benefits of volunteering outweigh the effort which can include new friends, new skills, new understanding and a sense of achievement, among many others.
There is only so much that current officers can do to achieve effective succession planning, because it depends on your willingness to volunteer. Please therefore consider volunteering yourself forward for roles as they become available. If you would like to discuss any of these opportunities before volunteering, please contact me at president@thebts.org, or the General Secretary at generalsecretary@thebts.org, or speak directly to any of the current postholders.
Your BTS needs you. Without you, we do not have a Society.
As mentioned in the July letter, Professor Ruth Roberts will be leading the bid for EUROTOX Birmingham 2030. We are all hopeful, and I hope you have seen the avatars displayed on LinkedIn. If you have not seen them there, please visit the BTS pages here. Look out for us all in Vienna!
Now, on to the three little words. There are many possibilities to choose from. I was thinking about a tough one this time, but we will go for an easy-to-intermediate challenge. For the clue, consider one economic sector mentioned above where toxicology is important. Not only do you need to get the answer I expect you to explain each word for full marks.
Oxygen, Blue, Smith.
With best wishes
Tim
Professor Tim Gant
President BTS
