Unilever, in partnership with C-SOT, has sponsored AAT awards in China every year since 2016. A number of pioneer scientists and outstanding scientists have been awarded already. The three award winners for 2022 were announced at the award ceremony of the 10th C-SOT National Congress on 9th April 2023:
- Professor RuiXue Huang, XiangYa School of Public Heath, Central South University
- Contributions: Quantitative structure–activity relationship models; Adverse outcome pathways; developing and educating talents on AAT - Professor Qi Wang, School of Public Health, Peking University
- Contributions: Transcriptomic and metabolomic profiling; DNA damage response signalling pathways; scientific communications and organising international meetings - Professor Xiaowei, Zhang, School of Environment, Nanjing University
- Contributions: Mechanistic understanding of the adverse health and ecological effects by pollutants; development of novel non-animal approaches using in vitro high-throughput screening for profiling pathway-based chemical bioactivity
The awards recognise and raise awareness of the leading research and development in the area of non-animal approaches to safety assessment in China, which are part of the overall global effort to produce new tools and methods to increasingly allow the assurance of chemicals and product safety without animal testing.