Paul THOMAS has a PhD in aquatic ecotoxicology and more than 20 years' experience with industrial chemicals, agrochemicals and biocides gained at CIT (where he set up the ecotoxicology service and was study director for 4 years), ATOFINA (now ARKEMA) where he practiced ecotoxicology and Risk Assessment for existing substances and AkzoNobel where he was head of department, head of the ecotoxicology GLP and research laboratories and organiser of REACH services for the company. He joined CEHTRA in 2008 as director of CEHTRA Lyon specialising in REACH-related services and is manager of the CEHTRA ecotoxicology team. He has contributed strongly to numerous successful registrations out of the >300 substances that CEHTRA has registered since 2010 and has been working in the area of predictive ecotoxicology since this time. In 2013, while retaining all his roles in CEHTRA, Paul was nominated CEO of KREATiS, a start-up company specialising in the creation of high accuracy QSARs to replace experimentation for REACH.

Carole CHARMEAU holds a PhD in Toxicology and is qualified as a European Registered Toxicologist (ERT). She has 20 years of experience with industrial chemicals and agrochemicals gained at IARC and Rhodia. She joined CEHTRA in 2008 as a senior toxicologist to strengthen the REACH team, providing strategy to assess the hazard of chemicals for human health using alternative methods. Carole is also specialised in the derivation of Derived No Effect Levels for the human. She developped the IFRA consumer exposure scenarios guidance (2011) and was involved in ECHA’s project for the consumer risk assessment developing scenarios in ConsExpo to be imported in CHESAR. Since 2014, Carole has participated in human health R&D projects at KREATiS, a daughter company of CEHTRA  specialised in the development of High Accuracy In-Silico models to predict regulatory experimental endpoints such as skin/eye irritation potential or skin sensitisation potential of chemicals. In January 2018, Carole joined KREATiS  as Managing Director of the company where she continues to provide expert toxicology advice for both CEHTRA and KREATiS.

Faizan SAHIGARA has completed his Master’s degree in Bioinformatics from King’s College London in 2010 during which he gained a thorough knowledge and training in the areas of Chemoinformatics, Protein-Protein interactions and programming languages. Later, he had been carrying out his research within the Marie Curie Initial Training Network – Environmental Chemoinformatics (ECO-ITN) to develop novel strategies in defining the Applicability Domain of QSAR models. In June 2013, as a part of his Marie Curie fellowship, he successfully defended his PhD work at the University of Milano-Bicocca, Italy.  In October 2013, Faizan has joined CEHTRA to develop High Accuracy QSARs (HA-QSARs) and strict validation of these models with a major focus on clearly defining their applicability domain and implementing statistical approaches to demonstrate the reliability in model predictions. Since October 2015, Faizan has joined KREATiS and is continuing his role as in Silico validation Expert, Statistics advisor and as Business Developer. 

Melanie DELANNOY obtained her Master’s degree in Chemistry from the Universidad Central de Venezuela (UCV) in 2006, during this time she showed interest in organic chemistry and molecular modelling. At the UCV she worked for two years as research project manager during which she gained knowledge in phytochemistry and anti-inflammatory bioactivity. In July 2012, she obtained her PhD in Organic Chemistry from the Université de Bordeaux during which she gained knowledge in organic synthesis, biophysics, protein-ligand interactions and cellular biology. Later on, she was a post-doctoral researcher for one year at the École Supérieure de Physique et de Chimie Industrielles de la Ville de Paris (ESPCI Paris tech) were she re-enforced her knowledge in organic reactivity. Recently she created a smartphone application to perform the synthesis of famous organic molecules. She joined KREATiS in November 2017 and is working on the development of new models to replace experimentation for human health endpoints.

Pascal BICHEREL has obtained his Master’s degree in environmental sciences from Graduate School of Life Sciences of Toulouse in 2013. During his academic studies he gained skills in  molecular and cell biology and organic chemistry. As a part of his first internship at INRA (National Institute of Agronomic Research) in Versailles-Grignon, he studied the impact of a pesticide exposure on earthworms. During the second year of his Master’s degree, he carried out his internship at CEHTRA to develop predictive models for the acute aquatic toxicity of mixtures. In October 2013, he joined CEHTRA, then its subsidiary, KREATiS as its first employee. Currently, he is using his expertise in designing new in silico models of High Accuracy-QSAR (HA-QSARs) at KREATiS in order to replace experimentation for REACH.

Franklin BAUER obtained his Master’s and Engineer’s degree in organic, bioorganic and therapeutic chemistry from  National Graduate School of Chemistry of Mulhouse (ENSCMu) in 2014. During his studies, he gained a strong knowledge of organic chemistry and also learned molecular modelling, software programming and chemical analysis methods. Between december 2014 and december 2017, he did a PhD fellowship in collaboration with KREATiS and University of Haute-Alsace, thanks to a "CIFRE", a funding from French government. This PhD focussed on a better characerisation of mecanisms of toxic action based on the molecular structure. Since then, Franklin is working at KREATiS on QSAR models and software development.