Professional Profile
Dr. Melissa Heintz is a toxicologist in ToxStrategies’ Health Sciences practice. Her primary areas of expertise include human health and ecological risk assessment, environmental chemical hazard screening, and mechanistic toxicology. Dr. Heintz has provided support to a diverse client base, including government (federal and state), chemical and consumer care product industries, and non-governmental organizations. She has experience evaluating health effects and developing health-based safety benchmarks for a wide range of substances, including environmental contaminants such as per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), phthalates, hydrocarbon solvents, and chlorinated chemistries, as well as food additives and select pharmaceuticals using weight of evidence (WoE) approaches that incorporate systematic literature reviews and meta-analyses, in addition to epidemiological, in vitro, in vivo, and in silico data.
Dr. Heintz is an expert in designing and implementing in vitro and in vivo studies that utilize new approach methodologies (NAMs) including ‘omic applications to answer toxicity questions, including chemical prioritization and screening, mode of action, and transcriptomic reference value derivation for protecting ecological or human health. In addition, she has applied systematic review approaches to the benefit/risk analysis of food ingredients and contaminants, GRAS dossier submissions, and adverse outcome pathway (AOP) development.
Dr. Heintz has presented her research at national and international scientific meetings and reported her results in peer-reviewed scientific journals. She also has more than 15 years of experience in science communication, and has disseminated scientific research findings to students at all education levels, including K-12 and college students, as well as the general public.