**2.1 Definition and identification of EDCs**

In 2002, the International Programme on Chemical Safety belonging to the World Health Organization conducted a comprehensive evaluation of EDCs and proposed the following definition: "An endocrine disruptor is an exogenous substance or mixture that alters function(s) of the endocrine system and consequently causes adverse health effects in an intact organism, or its progeny, or (sub)populations."

EDCs are chemicals, mainly man-made, but also naturally occurring substances that can be found in plants or fungi, that interfere with hormonal signaling pathways. The EDCs are active at very low doses, impact health, and can have persistent effects [1–5, 10, 11, 13, 16, 48].

The first scientific statement of the Endocrine Society in 2009 provided a wake-up call to the scientific community on the risks of EDCs for human health. The second statement of the Endocrine Society in 2015 provided a global update on EDCs based on the available data in the literature [10].

The experimental screening process of the EDCs using animal data is timeconsuming and costly. Computer-based (*in silico*) methods have been developed to predict the effect of the EDCs on the endocrine receptor [5, 49]. One popular method is the molecular docking approach.
