Penny Nymark from PINK project partner Karolinska Institute (KI) and Thomas Exner from Seven Past Nine (7P9), contributed with a presentation (“Adverse Outcome Pathways for Safe and Sustainable By Design Approaches”) to the 2023-24 Report of SKIG:
WITTWEHR, C., AUDOUZE, K., BURGDORF, T., CLERBAUX, L.-A., COEREK, E., DEMUYNCK, E., EXNER, T., FILIPOVSKA, J., FRITSCHE, E., GERIS, L., HENCH, V., JELIAZKOVA, N., KARSCHNIK, T., KUCHOVSKA, E., MAIA LADEIRA, L.C., MALINOWSKA, J., MARINOV, E., MARTENS, M., MERTENS, B., NYMARK, P., SCHAFFERT, A., STAUMONT, B., TANABE, S., TOLLEFSEN, K.E., VILLENEUVE, D.L. and VIVIANI, B., SKIG Report 2023-2024, Publications Office of the European Union, Luxembourg, 2025, https://data.europa.eu/doi/10.2760/7749010, JRC140403.
The 2023–2024 Report of the Society for the Advancement of AOPs Knowledgebase Interest Group (SKIG) is an official Joint Research Centre (JRC) publication documenting the activities and technical developments undertaken within the global Adverse Outcome Pathway (AOP) community. As described in the abstract, SKIG is “a vibrant assembly of more than 40 international experts focused on advancing the Adverse Outcome Pathways (AOP) framework,” operating through regular online meetings to discuss scientific, technical, and regulatory aspects of AOP development, with a particular focus on the AOP-Wiki and the broader AOP-Knowledge Base (AOP-KB) ecosystem. The report spans the group’s activities from its foundation in June 2023 through December 2024, covering 21 presentations and resulting lessons for the planned AOP-Wiki 3.0.
The report situates SKIG within the institutional framework of OECD, SAAOP (Society for the Advancement of AOPs), and the AOP-KB Coordination Group, which collectively manage the AOP-Wiki infrastructure. The AOP concept – “a conceptual construct that portrays existing knowledge concerning the linkage between a direct Molecular Initiating Event (MIE) and an Adverse Outcome (AO) via Key Events (KEs) connected by Key Event Relationships (KERs)” – provides the mechanistic backbone for predictive toxicology and regulatory science. The AOP-KB, initiated by OECD in 2013, serves as “the primary central repository for all AOPs developed either as part of the OECD AOP Development Programme or by the larger scientific community,” thereby enabling knowledge re-use and harmonization across multiple toxicological domains. SKIG functions as an open, interdisciplinary forum “inviting participation from a diverse range of individuals active in the AOP(-Wiki) domain,” rather than a closed governance body. Its meetings every six weeks combine scientific presentations with interactive discussions, informing both SAAOP and the AOP-KB Coordination Group on community needs, conceptual challenges, and opportunities for system improvements.
Across 2023–2024, SKIG addressed 21 thematic areas encompassing scientific innovation, ontology harmonization, artificial intelligence, data stewardship, and regulatory application. Table 2 of the report classifies these by relevance for scientific, technical, and implementation aspects, underscoring SKIG’s integrative nature.
The presentation of Penny Nymark and Thomas Exner was regarded another high-impact contribution, “Adverse Outcome Pathways for Safe and Sustainable by Design approaches”, connects the AOP framework to EU policy initiatives such as the Chemicals Strategy for Sustainability and the Roadmap toward phasing out animal testing for chemical safety assessments. The report explicitly notes that “SKIG’s work to foster the development and application of AOPs is pivotal in supporting the European Union’s policy on the protection of animals used for scientific purposes (Directive 2010/63/EU)”.
The concluding section, “Hands-on lessons learned for short-term AOP-Wiki implementation”, consolidates practical recommendations: developing collections features, ontology-support interfaces, and structured curation workflows to ensure sustainable data quality. SKIG thus acts as a translational platform between research, data infrastructure, and regulation, embodying the AOP community’s shift toward open, FAIR, and AI-assisted toxicology.
The SKIG Report 2023–2024 exemplifies a mature stage of the AOP paradigm – moving from conceptual development to digital operationalization and community governance. Through the integration of ontology frameworks, automation, and artificial intelligence, it sets the foundation for AOP-Wiki 3.0, envisioned as a globally interoperable knowledge hub for mechanism-based safety assessment and predictive toxicology.
Follow this link to read the full publication.
Parts of the research of this work (KI and 7P9) has been funded by the European Union`s R&I project PINK (grant agreement # 101137809).
