Luis G. Valerio, Jr.

Dr. Luis G. Valerio, Jr. is a board-certified toxicologist with over 26 years of expertise in chemical toxicology from academic, industrial, and regulatory settings. He has worked in public health at the US Food and Drug Administration in areas of food and drug safety, and tobacco regulation. He is originally from Southern Colorado. He earned his Ph.D. in Pharmaceutical Science from the University of Colorado in Denver, and B.A. in Environmental, Population, and Organismic Biology from the University of Colorado, at Boulder.

He was a US National Research Council, National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, Gastroenterology Fellow at the University of Colorado, School of Medicine, where he researched liver toxicity of chemicals in the Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology. His academic research entailed oxidative mechanisms of alcohol and iron-induced liver injury, and molecular regulation of cytochrome P450 enzymes, 1A1, 1A2, and 3A4. As a US National Science Foundation International Postdoctoral Fellow, he was a visiting researcher in Barcelona, Spain, where he studied the biochemistry of human alcohol dehydrogenase enzymes at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona.

He has been a temporary advisor for the World Health Organization assessing the safety of food flavors and other ingredients. His experience on quality standards-setting committees for human pharmaceuticals, and industry experience in consumer product safety and as a Scientific Director of a food chemical and manufacturing trade association in Washington, D.C., has strengthened his expertise in developing rigorous safety standards, assessing potential health risks, and advancing scientific approaches to product safety and regulatory compliance.

He is Editor-in-Chief of premier scientific peer-reviewed journals, Toxicology Mechanisms and Methods and Expert Opinion on Drug Metabolism & Toxicology (Taylor & Francis Group). He is also Associate Editor of Toxicology and Applied Pharmacology, Computational Toxicology (Elsevier), and Inhalation Toxicology (Taylor & Francis Group).

Dr. Valerio is a renowned expert in computational (in silico) toxicology, with an extensive publication record focusing on alternative methods. His research has significantly contributed to our understanding of chemical toxicity mechanisms, xenobiotic metabolism, and advancements in safety science. His work has been widely recognized and cited in the field, demonstrating his pivotal role in shaping modern approaches to toxicology assessment and how computational methods contribute to risk evaluation.