Paula C. Alvito

• PhD Biology
• Researcher at National Institute of Health Doutor Ricardo Jorge I.P., Lisboa

The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has a goal to efficiently conduct aggregate exposure assessments (AEAs) for chemicals using both exposure models and human biomonitoring (HBM) data by 2030. To achieve EFSA's vision, a roadmap for action for advancing aggregate exposure (AE) in the EU was developed. This roadmap was created by performing a...

Considering the increase in the production and use of nanomaterials (NM) in food/feed and food contact materials, novel strategies for efficient and sustainable hazard characterization, especially in the early stages of NM development, have been proposed. Some of these strategies encompass the utilization of in vitro simulated digestion prior to cy...

The introduction of complementary foods (CFs) is a critical step in an infant's transition to solid foods, providing essential nutrients beyond breast milk. However, CFs may contain potentially toxic elements (PTEs), such as arsenic and cadmium that pose health risks to infants. In this context, understanding the bioaccessibility of PTEs is vital a...

One of the aims of the European Human Biomonitoring Initiative, HBM4EU, was to provide examples of and good practices for the effective use of human biomonitoring (HBM) data in human health risk assessment (RA). The need for such information is pressing, as previous research has indicated that regulatory risk assessors generally lack knowledge and...

As one of the core elements of the European Human Biomonitoring Initiative (HBM4EU) a human biomonitoring (HBM) survey was conducted in 23 countries to generate EU-wide comparable HBM data. This survey has built on existing HBM capacity in Europe by aligning national or regional HBM studies, referred to as the HBM4EU Aligned Studies. The HBM4EU Ali...

Mycotoxins are secondary metabolites produced by fungi occurring in food that are toxic to animals and humans. Early-life mycotoxins exposure has been linked to diverse pathologies. However, how maternal exposure to mycotoxins impacts on the intestinal barrier function of progeny has not been explored. Here, exposure of pregnant and lactating C57Bl...

Mycotoxins are natural metabolites produced by fungi that contaminate food and feed worldwide. They can pose a threat to human and animal health, mainly causing chronic effects, e.g., immunotoxic and carcinogenic. Due to climate change, an increase in European population exposure to mycotoxins is expected to occur, raising public health concerns. T...

Duarte, S., Hilário, C., Tomás, J., Alvito, P., Boavida, R , Magro, A., Carvalho, M.O. (2022) Interaction between T. castaneum and mycotoxin-producing fungi present in milled grains. In Nuria Agustí, Cristina Castañé, Jordi Riudavets (Eds) Proceedings of the 13th Meeting Working Group „Integrated Protection of Stored Products“. Barcelona, Spain, 03...

Titanium dioxide nanoparticles (TiO2-NPs) are widely used, and humans are exposed through food (E171), cosmetics (e.g., toothpaste), and pharmaceuticals. The oral and gastrointestinal (GIT) tract are the first contact sites, but it may be systemically distributed. However, a robust adverse outcome pathway (AOP) has not been developed upon GIT expos...

Early-life exposure occurs during gestation through transfer to the fetus and later, during lactation. Recent monitoring data revealed that the Portuguese population is exposed to mycotoxins, including young children. This study aimed to develop a pilot study to assess the early-life exposure to mycotoxins through a mother-child cohort, and to iden...

The use of nanoparticles (e.g. titanium dioxide) in commercial food products to modify some properties, such as brightness and whiteness, increased in the last years and is nowadays widespread. Despite the inhalation of nanoparticles is already a topic of concern, the potential adverse health effects due to ingestion still present gaps of knowledge...

Poster presented at SETAC Europe 32nd Annual Meeting 2022, from the project ENTOSAFE.

The first 1000 days of life are very sensitive to any event that alters health programming, and they represent a window for intervention to improve population health. Pregnant women, fetuses, and infants are particularly vulnerable to exposure to food contaminated with mycotoxins. This review aimed to gather data from the literature on mycotoxins e...

This paper summarizes the latest advances of the EU Project SIAR-ECHORD++, whose main objective is the design of a new robotic platform for inspecting visitable sewers. The SIAR robot aims to determine the sewer serviceability, to identify critical structural defects, to perform sewer monitoring and eventually to take water or gas samples of the en...

Worldwide the issue of mycotoxins results in economic losses estimated at billions of dollars and toxicological risk for both humans and animals. Preventive measures also include decontamination and mitigation actions that can be carried out through food processing. Several proposals have been tested and illustrated also in scientific papers during...

Cereal-based foods, including breakfast (BC) and infant cereals (IC), are among the first solid foods introduced to infants. BC and IC are sources of macro and micronutrients that have beneficial effects on health, but can also be sources of harmful chemical and microbiological contaminants and nutrients that may lead to adverse health effects at h...

Predictability is important to autistic individuals, and robots have been suggested to meet this need as they can be programmed to be predictable, as well as elicit social interaction. The effectiveness of robot-assisted interventions designed for social skill learning presumably depends on the interplay between robot predictability, engagement in...

Simple Summary It is important to hold cereals in storage conditions that exclude insect pests such as the red flour beetle and fungi, especially mycotoxin-producing ones (as a few strains of Aspergillus flavus). This work aims to investigate the interaction between these two organisms when thriving in maize flour. It was observed that when both or...

This paper presents a human–robot co-working system to be applied to industrial tasks such as the production line of a paint factory. The aim is to optimize the picking task with respect to manual operation in a paint factory. The use of an agile autonomous robot co-worker reduces the time in the picking process of materials, and the reduction of t...

Climate change (CC) is nowadays unquestionable and governmental institutions, scientific community, and citizens are becoming more and more aware about this reality. Mycotoxins are one of the most important food safety hazards due to its high toxicity and associated health effects. Among mycotoxins, aflatoxins are those calling for a special attent...

Deoxynivalenol (DON), an enteropathogenic mycotoxin produced by Fusarium species, is usually associated with adverse health outcomes such as gastrointestinal diseases and immunotoxicity. To estimate DON exposure of the Portuguese population at national level, a modelling approach, based on data from 94 Portuguese volunteers, was developed consideri...

Several metallic nanomaterials (NMs), such as titanium dioxide nanomaterials (TiO2), present beneficial properties with a broad range of innovative applications. The human population is exposed to TiO2, particularly by ingestion, due to its increasing use as a food additive and inclusion in dietary supplements and food packaging materials. Whether...

Food products can be contaminated by several fungi species and each species may produce different mycotoxins, leading to human combined exposure. Although predictions about the joint toxic effects of mycotoxins can be made from their individual toxicities, experimental data is still limited to allow a reliable hazard assessment. Thus, this study ai...

Human biomonitoring is an important tool to assess human exposure to chemicals, contributing to describe trends of exposure over time and to identify population groups that could be under risk. Aflatoxins are genotoxic and carcinogenic food contaminants causing hepatocellular carcinoma, the third leading cause of cancer deaths worldwide. In Portuga...

Zearalenone and alternariol are mycotoxins produced by Fusarium and Alternaria species, respectively, that present estrogenic activity and consequently are classified as endocrine disruptors. To estimate the exposure of the Portuguese population to these two mycotoxins at a national level, a modelling approach, based on data from 94 Portuguese volu...

Mycotoxins are natural chemical contaminants of foods, posing several health risks to humans. Biomarkers-driven research has been used as a tool for a more accurate characterization of the internal exposure. Whether certain food items are predictors of exposure to mycotoxins constitutes an important aspect for the risk assessment of mycotoxins. Com...

The SIAR platform is a six-wheeled ground robot with differential kinematic configuration and automatic width adjustment developed for the ECHORD++ Challenge on Urban Robotics: “Robots For The Inspection And The Clearance Of The Sewer Network In Cities”. This challenge proposes the development of a wireless robotic platform for long range inspectio...

“RiskBenefit4EU ‐ Partnering to strengthen the risk‐benefit assessment within EU using a holistic approach” was a knowledge transfer project funded by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) that integrated a multidisciplinary team from Portugal, Denmark and France. This project aimed to strengthen the EU capacity to assess risks and benefits ass...

Mycotoxins constitute a relevant group of food contaminants with several associated health outcomes such as estrogenic, immunotoxic, nephrotoxic and teratogenic effects. Although scarce data are available in Portugal, human biomonitoring studies have been globally developed to assess the exposure to mycotoxins at individual level. The present study...

Human biomonitoring (HBM) is recognized as an important tool to assess the Human exposure to chemicals, contributing to describe trends and patterns of exposure over time and to identify population groups that could be under risk. Natural chemicals as mycotoxins, fungi metabolites that produce toxic effects in humans, are important compounds that c...

Objectives: There is an epidemic of Mesoamerican nephropathy (MeN) in Central America, where sugarcane production is prominent. Numerous causes are proposed, but to date limited evidence supports any one hypothesis. A nested case-control study using biosamples from a rural, community-based follow-up study of 350 young adults from Northwest Nicarag...

Background: Breast milk is considered an essential food segment for children up to 6 months; however, it can be contaminated with some mycotoxins, such as aflatoxin M1 (AFM1) and ochratoxin A (OTA) as a consequence of ingestion of dietary mycotoxins by lactating mothers. Moreover, the health of infants can be threatened due to simultaneous exposure...

Stored grains cycle could be summarized with “from the farm to fork”, similarly to the life cycle assessment also known as “cradle to the grave assessment”. The aim of SafeGrains* project is to assess some aspects of stored grains “life cycle”, due to infestation by insect pests and mycotoxin-producing fungi growth. The infestation of stored produc...

Background: Human diet may present both risks and benefits to consumers’ health. Risk-benefit assessment of foods (RBA) intends to estimate the overall health impact associated with exposure (or lack of exposure) to a particular food or food component. Scope and approach: “RiskBenefit4EU – Partnering to strengthen the risk-benefit assessment within...

Human biomonitoring (HBM) is an important tool to survey the internal exposure of humans which represents the real life chemical body burden to chemicals and/or their metabolites. It results from total exposure to chemical substances from different sources and via different routes. These substances may be regulated under different legislative frame...

Humans can be exposed to a complex and variable combination of mycotoxins. After ingestion, intestinal mucosa constitutes the first biological barrier that can be exposed to high concentrations of these toxins. The present study aimed to characterize the combined cytotoxicity, genotoxicity and impact on the gastrointestinal barrier integrity of pat...

Mycotoxins constitute a relevant group of food contaminants with several associated health outcomes such as estrogenic, immunotoxic, nephrotoxic and teratogenic effects. Although scarce data are available in Portugal, human biomonitoring studies have been globally developed to assess the exposure to mycotoxins at individual level. In order to overc...

In this article, we address the implementation and deployment of a service robot platform for interaction with the elderly in the context of a collaborative European initiative. Specifically, we overview the development of the robot system architecture and components, focusing on the graceful integration of a set of interoperable intelligent servic...

Developing a mechanistic understanding of the impact of food structure and composition on human health has increasingly involved simulating digestion in the upper gastrointestinal tract. These simulations have used a wide range of different conditions that often have very little physiological relevance, and this impedes the meaningful comparison of...

Many food innovations rely on the introduction and use of new or modified proteins. New or modified food proteins may lead to major health risks due to their inherent potential to cause food allergy. Currently, the pre-market allergenicity assessment for new or modified food proteins and protein sources relies on methods for identifying allergenic...

This study aimed to assess the exposure of Brazilian residents (N = 86) from rural areas to multiple mycotoxins and characterize the associated risk in two sampling periods (SP) (April–May and December/2016). Mycotoxins in food and urine samples were determined by liquid chromatography coupled to tandem mass spectrometry. Mean probable daily intake...

Zinc (Zn) is an essential dietary mineral which has been reported to also affect the metabolism of water‐soluble vitamins. Intestinal folate conjugase enzyme is zinc‐dependent, such that Zn deficiency tends to reduce absorption of polyglutamylfolates. Hence, it is important to investigate the co‐occurrence and bioaccessibility of Zn and folates in...

SocialRobot is a collaborative European project, which focuses on providing a practical and interactive solution to improve the quality of life of elderly people. Having this in mind, a state of the art robotic mobile platform has been integrated with virtual social care technology to meet the elderly individual needs and requirements, following a...

Mycotoxins are toxic mold metabolites that can persist in environment long after the fungi species responsible for their production disappear. Critical workplace for mycotoxins presence has already been studied and nowadays it is possible to recognize that exposure to mycotoxins through inhalation occurs due to their presence in dust. This study ai...

Zearalenone (ZEN) is a mycotoxin that occurs widely in food commodities with particular incidence in cereals. Due to chemical structures similar to the endogenous estrogen 17-β-estradiol, ZEN and its metabolites exert estrogenic toxicity. Therefore, it is crucial to assess ZEN exposure among the population. Biomarker-driven research appeared as a p...

Mycotoxins are secondary fungi metabolites that induce acute and chronic toxic effects in humans and animals. Simultaneous contamination of cereal-based products by multiple mycotoxins has been increasingly reported, including in food products usually consumed by children. Although some previous authors assessed the health risk of children exposed...

Climate change has been indicated as a driver for food safety issues worldwide, mainly due to the impact on the occurrence of food safety hazards at various stages of food chain. Mycotoxins, natural contaminants produced by fungi, are among the most important of such hazards. Aflatoxins, which have the highest acute and chronic toxicity of all myco...

Mycotoxins are contaminants usually found in foodstuffs including fruit and products thereof. These secondary metabolites produced by fungi can cause serious human and animal health problems. Patulin is a mycotoxin that occurs primarily in apples and products thereof, including those consumed by children, such as apple purées or fruit juices. The i...

This paper reports the first study of patulin occurrence in fruit juices and risk assessment related to patulin intake by children, adolescents and adults in Serbia. During three consecutive years (2013-2015), 142 fruit (apple or multi-fruit) juices were collected from the market and analysed using HPLC-UV. Patulin was found in 51.4% of juices with...

This study reports for the first time in Serbia the occurrence of patulin in apple-based food and the risk assessment associated with patulin intake by infants and preschool children. In total, 214 samples of infant fruit juices (48), infant purée (66) and juices for children (small package with straw, 100) were collected over three years (2013-201...

Mycotoxins are secondary metabolites of fungi that cause toxic and carcinogenic effects. Human exposure to multiple mycotoxins constitutes an increasing health concern due to potential mycotoxins combined effects. The presence of mycotoxins mixtures in foodstuffs as cereals has been reported over the last years, but few studies are available concer...

Background. In vitro digestion models show great promise in facilitating the rationale design of foods. This paper provides a look into the current state of the art and outlines possible future paths for developments of digestion models recreating the diverse physiological conditions of specific groups of the human population. Scope and Approach....

Most fungi are able to produce several mycotoxins simultaneously and, consequently, to contaminate a wide variety of foodstuffs. Therefore, the risk of human co-exposure to multiple mycotoxins is real, raising a growing concern about their potential impact on human health. Besides, government and industry regulations are usually based on individual...

Patulin (PAT) and ochratoxin A (OTA) are well known enteropathogenic mycotoxins that are present in several foodstuffs. Processed cereal-based foods are among the first solid foods eaten by children, a particularly vulnerable population group. There is a lack of knowledge related to the co-occurrence of PAT and OTA in food intended for children con...

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Historically, the health risk of mycotoxins have been evaluated on the basis of single-chemical and single-exposure pathway scenarios. However, the co-contamination of foodstuffs with these compounds is being reported at an increasing rate and a multiple-exposure scenario for humans and vulnerable population groups as children is urgently needed. C...

The intestinal mucosa is the first biological barrier encountered by mycotoxins potentially present in foods. Patulin, a mycotoxin produced by fungi of genera Penicillium, constitutes an especial concern considering the immunological, neurological and gastrointestinal effects resulting from human exposure. The present work aims to evaluate the inte...

Patulin is a mycotoxin produced by fungi of the genera Aspergillus and Penicillium. This toxin can contaminate several fruits, including apples and by-products, and may be associated with the occurrence of mutagenic, genotoxic, immunosuppressant, immunotoxic, neurotoxic, and possibly carcinogenic effects. Thus, it is fundamental to monitor the occu...

Within the active field of in vitro digestion in food research, the COST Action INFOGEST aimed to harmonize in vitro protocols simulating human digestion on the basis of physiologically inferred conditions. A harmonized static in vitro digestion (IVD) method was recently published as a primary output from this network. To validate this protocol, in...

SocialRobot is a collaborative European project, which focuses on providing a practical and interactive robotic solution to improve the quality of life of elderly people. Having this in mind, a state of the art mobile robot platform has been integrated with virtual social care technology to meet the elderly individual needs and requirements, follow...

There is a growing concern within public health about mycotoxin involvement in human diseases, namely those related to children. Scarce data are available in the literature concerning the occurrence of multiple mycotoxins in infant food and their combined toxicity, and no data exists in Portugal concerning this issue. In order to contribute to fill...

This research was performed under the MycoMix project “Exploring the toxic effects of mixtures of mycotoxins in infant food and potential health impact” (PTDC/DTPFTO/0417/2012) funded by the Fundac¸ ao para a Ciencia e Tecnologia (FCT), Portugal.

Risk analysis, is a powerful tool for including science-based knowledge in a systematic approach to food safety problems. The use of risk analysis can promote ongoing improvements in public health and provide a basis for expanding international trade in foods. Within risk analysis, the risk assessment results are quantitative or qualitative express...

In human health risk assessment, ingestion of food is considered a major route of exposure to mycotoxins, metabolites that cause toxic outcomes in humans and infants are a particularly vulnerable population group. This study aims to characterize the risk associated with the consumption of breakfast cereals (BC) concerning the exposure of Portuguese...

Mycotoxins are natural contaminants produced by fungi and its common occurrence in food poses a threat to human health, mainly to vulnerable population groups as children. The MycoMix Project (2013-15) aims to study the occurrence of multiple mycotoxins and toxicity interactions in infant foods and cereals consumed by Portuguese children and try to...

In human health risk assessment, ingestion of food is considered a major route of exposure to mycotoxins, metabolites that cause toxic outcomes in humans and infants are a particularly vulnerable population group. This study aims to characterize the risk associated with the consumption of breakfast cereals (BC) concerning the exposure of Portuguese...

Environmental microbiology is an evolving science. This is in part driven by changes and development of new analytical techniques that are becoming more varied and powerful. Before application, emerging issues and techniques need to be discussed among scientists, technical professionals, practitioners, and students. The TEMPH2014 provided a forum t...

In human health risk assessment, ingestion of food is considered a major route of exposure to many contaminants, although the total amount of an ingested contaminant (external dose) does not always reflect the quantity available for the body (internal dose). In this study, two in vitro methods were applied to study bioaccessibility and intestinal m...

Simulated gastro-intestinal digestion is widely employed in many fields of food and nutritional sciences, as conducting human trials are often costly, resource intensive, and ethically disputable. As a consequence, in vitro alternatives allowing for the determination of a variety of endpoints such as bioaccessibility of nutrients and non-nutrients,...

This video details the development of an intelligent outdoor Guide robot. The main objective is to deploy an innovative robotic guide which is not only able to show information, but to react to the affective states of the users, and to offer location-based services using augmented reality. The scientific challenges concern autonomous outdoor naviga...

This video details the development of an intelligent outdoor guide robot. The main objective is to deploy an innovative robotic guide which is not only able to show information, but to react to the affective states of the users, and to offer location-based services using augmented reality. The scientific challenges concern autonomous outdoor naviga...

No material published in World Mycotoxin Journal may be reproduced without first obtaining written permission from the publisher. The author may send or transmit individual copies of this PDF of the article, to colleagues upon their specific request provided no fee is charged, and further-provided that there is no systematic distribution of the man...

Commercial infant food labelled as from organic and conventional origin (n = 87) was analysed for total mercury content using a direct mercury analyser (DMA). Median contents of mercury were 0.50, 0.50 and 0.40 μg kg(-1) for processed cereal-based food, infant formulae and baby foods, respectively, with a maximum value of 19.56 μg kg(-1) in a baby...

Commercial baby food labelled as from organic or conventional origin, including vegetable-based baby foods, fruit purees and fruit juices (n = 80), were analysed for nitrate content by an in-house validated HPLC method. Nitrate contents ranged from 5 to 230 mg kg(-1) with a mean concentration of 102 mg kg(-1) for vegetable-based baby foods, and a m...

This paper reports ongoing research to inform the design of a social robot to monitor levels of pollutant gasses in the air. Next to licensed environmental agents and immobile chemical sensors, mobile technologies such as robotic agents are needed to collect complaints and smell descriptions from humans in urban industrial areas. These robots will...

The present study evaluates the effects of different cooking methods (grilling, frying and boiling) on selenium contents of six marine species commonly consumed in Portugal. Forty-two composite samples of sardine, horse mackerel, gilthead seabream, silver scabbardfish, hake and octopus were digested in a microwave system and analysed by electrother...

An analytic procedure based on high-performance liquid chromatography with solid-phase extraction and UV detection (SPE–HPLC–UV) was validated and used to analyse 144 apple-based-foods, including 68 apple juices (32 clear and 36 cloudy) and 76 homogenised apple purees marketed in Portugal. Patulin was detected in 33 samples (23%) with values rangin...