Academic Credentials
  • B.Sc., Biology, University of York, UK, 2003

Mike Dickinson has over 20 years' experience working in the area of food and feed chain safety, primarily as an analytical chemist providing support and solutions on the analytical techniques used to investigate problems across a number of commodities and industries including food, beverages and feed. Mike worked for Fera Science Ltd (previously The Food and Environment Research Agency (Fera) and the Central Science Laboratory (CSL)) for 18 years before taking a position at the UK's Food Standards Agency (FSA) as a Senior Risk Assessor and Team Leader in the Chemical Risk Assessment / Toxicology team for 3.5 years.

Whilst at Fera, Mike worked as an analytical chemist on a wide range of food, feed and environmental projects with academia, industry and UK government department clients. Mike has developed, validated and obtained ISO17025 accreditation for analytical methodologies primarily using Gas Chromatography and Liquid Chromatography - tandem quadrupole Mass Spectrometry for veterinary medicines and pesticides in food and feed matrices before developing a specialism in non-targeted analysis using high resolution mass spectrometry. Mike was the metabolomics mass spectrometry lead for Fera, working on large European collaborative projects, developing data analysis pipelines for interpreting and annotating metabolomic data sets.

At the FSA Mike worked in the area of risk assessment for feed and feed additives and as an analytical chemistry lead for the Science Directorate. He worked closely with the Advisory Committee on Animal Feedstuffs (ACAF) and the Committee on Toxicity of Chemicals in Food, Consumer Products and the Environment (COT). His responsibilities were to evaluate the safety of regulated products through review of submitted dossiers and to lead a team which evaluated regulated product applications for food contact materials, food additives, flavourings and smoke flavourings, working closely with the UK Joint Expert Groups (external Scientific Advisory Committees) for these regulatory regimes.

Whilst at the FSA Mike set up the safety assessment process for the authorisation of animal trials using non-approved feed additives and led recent large research projects exploring the safety of non-approved substrates for insects (for feed) and mycotoxins in pet food. Mike has a particular interest in the safety of novel feed stuffs and feed additives, co-authoring a book chapter and a number of scientific papers on the safety implications of insect protein as potential soy or fishmeal replacement.

Mike has presented his work extensively throughout the world, being an invited speaker at conferences and workshops and recently represented the UK on an FAO panel discussing the safety of novel environmental inhibitors. Mike has acted as expert reviewer for journals such as Metabolomics, and provided expert analytical chemistry peer review for the UK's Department of Environment and Rural Affairs (Defra) and the Swedish Research Council.