Derek Renshaw

Biography

Derek Renshaw is an independent toxicologist with over 40 years of experience of assessing the safety of materials, with particular reference to the chemical safety of substances to which humans might be exposed. He graduated in 1979 in Applied Biology having studied an option in Nutrition and Toxicology. After graduation he worked in the laboratory of the Department of Health’s Toxicology Unit at St Bartholomew’s Hospital, London. Then at the end of 1981, he moved to an office-based job, evaluating toxicological data on various types of substances (including animal feedingstuffs, food additives, veterinary medicines, pesticides, novel foods and processes, irradiated foods, food contaminants, and industrial chemicals) for the Department of Health, staying in a similar role in the Food Standards Agency (FSA) when it was set up. He worked on the secretariats of various scientific committees in the UK (Committees on Toxicology (COT), Carcinogenicity (COC) and Mutagenicity (COM), and the Advisory Committee on Novel Foods and Processes (ACNFP)), EU (Committee on Veterinary Medicinal Products (CVMP)) and internationally (Veterinary International Congress on Harmonisation (VICH) and Joint FAO/WHO meetings on Food Additive (JECFA) and on Pesticides (JMPR)) and was a member of EU committees on animal feedingstuffs (Scientific Committee on Animal Nutrition (SCAN) and the Panel on Additives and Products or Substances used in Animal Feed (FEEDAP)).  In 2010, he took early retirement from the FSA, but kept working for FEEDAP and some of its working groups until 2015. From March 2021, he was a member of the UK’s Joint Expert Group on Animal Feed and Feed Additives (AFFAJEG) until its end in October 2022, when the Advisory Committee on Animal Feedingstuffs (ACAF) was reconvened. 

Mr Renshaw was included in the UK Register of Toxicologists in 1994 and in 1996 was admitted as a Member of the Institute of Biology. In 1997, he was certified as a EUROTOX Registered Toxicologist and certified as a European Biologist with the European Communities Biologists Association. In 1999, he was admitted as a member of the European College of Veterinary Pharmacology and Toxicology.

Register of Interests

Current

Personal