Mycotoxin research: progress and future prospects

At the present time we are examining the critical control points in the food production chain as part of a prevention strategy to minimise the contamination of food raw materials with mycotoxins. For some mycotoxins more a significant amount of knowledge is already available. For others, e.g. grapes and wine, less is known. In the next 5-10 years we will have to consolidate and move forward from the solid and not insignificant advances already made or being made in a range of complimentary areas. Regulation and EU directives have been the main driver in finding methods for the detection and control of entry of mycotoxins into the food chain. Looking to the future there are areas where significant advances need to be made for enabling prevention strategies to be implemented. These include: use of genomics and proteomics approaches to develop resistance to the fungi or to switch off production of mycotoxins; rapid and at/on line diagnostics relevant to EU limits for mycotoxins need to be produced and be cost-effective; the toxic effects of low concentrations of mixtures of mycotoxins is urgently needed for more accurate TDI values for specific mycotoxins to be obtained; are there emerging and new secondary metabolites produced by spoilage fungi which may be mycotoxins; decision support systems pre- and post-harvest are required including online expert systems for predicting risk from contamination on a regional and area specific level; effective production of toxin-free animal feeds are also necessary especially where mixed tropical and temperate raw materials are used for production. The question arises as to how these questions can be effectively answered. We need close collaboration between research scientists in academia and institutes and industry to enable these challenges to be met in the medium term.