Toxicity-Pathway-Based Risk Assessment

Toxicity-Pathway-Based Risk Assessment PDF Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309154227
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 134

Get Book

Book Description
In 2007, the National Research Council envisioned a new paradigm in which biologically important perturbations in key toxicity pathways would be evaluated with new methods in molecular biology, bioinformatics, computational toxicology, and a comprehensive array of in vitro tests based primarily on human biology. Although some considered the vision too optimistic with respect to the promise of the new science, no one can deny that a revolution in toxicity testing is under way. New approaches are being developed, and data are being generated. As a result, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) expects a large influx of data that will need to be evaluated. EPA also is faced with tens of thousands of chemicals on which toxicity information is incomplete and emerging chemicals and substances that will need risk assessment and possible regulation. Therefore, the agency asked the National Research Council to convene a symposium to stimulate discussion on the application of the new approaches and data in risk assessment. The symposium was held on May 11-13, 2009, in Washington, DC, and included presentations and discussion sessions on pathway-based approaches for hazard identification, applications of new approaches to mode-of-action analyses, the challenges to and opportunities for risk assessment in the changing paradigm, and future directions.

Toxicity-Pathway-Based Risk Assessment

Toxicity-Pathway-Based Risk Assessment PDF Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309154227
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 134

Get Book

Book Description
In 2007, the National Research Council envisioned a new paradigm in which biologically important perturbations in key toxicity pathways would be evaluated with new methods in molecular biology, bioinformatics, computational toxicology, and a comprehensive array of in vitro tests based primarily on human biology. Although some considered the vision too optimistic with respect to the promise of the new science, no one can deny that a revolution in toxicity testing is under way. New approaches are being developed, and data are being generated. As a result, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) expects a large influx of data that will need to be evaluated. EPA also is faced with tens of thousands of chemicals on which toxicity information is incomplete and emerging chemicals and substances that will need risk assessment and possible regulation. Therefore, the agency asked the National Research Council to convene a symposium to stimulate discussion on the application of the new approaches and data in risk assessment. The symposium was held on May 11-13, 2009, in Washington, DC, and included presentations and discussion sessions on pathway-based approaches for hazard identification, applications of new approaches to mode-of-action analyses, the challenges to and opportunities for risk assessment in the changing paradigm, and future directions.

Toxicity Testing in the 21st Century

Toxicity Testing in the 21st Century PDF Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309151732
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 217

Get Book

Book Description
Advances in molecular biology and toxicology are paving the way for major improvements in the evaluation of the hazards posed by the large number of chemicals found at low levels in the environment. The National Research Council was asked by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to review the state of the science and create a far-reaching vision for the future of toxicity testing. The book finds that developing, improving, and validating new laboratory tools based on recent scientific advances could significantly improve our ability to understand the hazards and risks posed by chemicals. This new knowledge would lead to much more informed environmental regulations and dramatically reduce the need for animal testing because the new tests would be based on human cells and cell components. Substantial scientific efforts and resources will be required to leverage these new technologies to realize the vision, but the result will be a more efficient, informative and less costly system for assessing the hazards posed by industrial chemicals and pesticides.

Science and Judgment in Risk Assessment

Science and Judgment in Risk Assessment PDF Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 030904894X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 668

Get Book

Book Description
The public depends on competent risk assessment from the federal government and the scientific community to grapple with the threat of pollution. When risk reports turn out to be overblownâ€"or when risks are overlookedâ€"public skepticism abounds. This comprehensive and readable book explores how the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) can improve its risk assessment practices, with a focus on implementation of the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments. With a wealth of detailed information, pertinent examples, and revealing analysis, the volume explores the "default option" and other basic concepts. It offers two views of EPA operations: The first examines how EPA currently assesses exposure to hazardous air pollutants, evaluates the toxicity of a substance, and characterizes the risk to the public. The second, more holistic, view explores how EPA can improve in several critical areas of risk assessment by focusing on cross-cutting themes and incorporating more scientific judgment. This comprehensive volume will be important to the EPA and other agencies, risk managers, environmental advocates, scientists, faculty, students, and concerned individuals.

A Systems Biology Approach to Advancing Adverse Outcome Pathways for Risk Assessment

A Systems Biology Approach to Advancing Adverse Outcome Pathways for Risk Assessment PDF Author: Natàlia Garcia-Reyero
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3319660845
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 422

Get Book

Book Description
Social pressure to minimize the use of animal testing, the ever-increasing concern on animal welfare, and the need for more human-relevant and more predictive toxicity tests are some of the drivers for new approaches to chemical screening. This book focuses on The Adverse Outcome Pathway, an analytical construct that describes a sequential chain of causally linked events at different levels of biological organization that lead to an adverse health or ecotoxicological effect. While past efforts have focused on toxicological pathway-based vision for human and ecological health assessment relying on in vitro systems and predictive models, The Adverse Outcome Pathway framework provides a simplified and structured way to organize toxicological information. Within the book, a systems biology approach supplies the tools to infer, link, and quantify the molecular initiating events and the key events and key event relationships leading to adverse outcomes. The advancement of these tools is crucial for the successful implementation of AOPs for regulatory purposes.

Applications of Toxicogenomic Technologies to Predictive Toxicology and Risk Assessment

Applications of Toxicogenomic Technologies to Predictive Toxicology and Risk Assessment PDF Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309178894
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 300

Get Book

Book Description
The new field of toxicogenomics presents a potentially powerful set of tools to better understand the health effects of exposures to toxicants in the environment. At the request of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, the National Research Council assembled a committee to identify the benefits of toxicogenomics, the challenges to achieving them, and potential approaches to overcoming such challenges. The report concludes that realizing the potential of toxicogenomics to improve public health decisions will require a concerted effort to generate data, make use of existing data, and study data in new waysâ€"an effort requiring funding, interagency coordination, and data management strategies.

Toxicology and Risk Assessment

Toxicology and Risk Assessment PDF Author: Helmut Greim
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1119135915
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 838

Get Book

Book Description
Provides a complete understanding of how our bodies respond to toxicants, and the principles used to assess the health risks of specific exposure scenarios Toxicology and Risk Assessment: A Comprehensive Introduction, Second Edition reflects recent advances in science and technology, and provides the scientific background and methodological issues to enable the reader to understand the basic principles in toxicology and to evaluate the health risks of specific exposure scenarios. Completely updated with the latest information, this book offers a concise introduction to the subject. It is divided into five sections: Principles in Toxicology, Organ Toxicology, Methods in Toxicology, Regulatory Toxicology, and Specific Toxicity. The 2nd Edition adds new chapters that cover recent scientific and technological advances and current topics including the endocrine system, alternatives to animal testing, risk assessment and thresholds for carcinogens, European and international regulation, nanomaterials, fuels, fragrances, and agrochemicals. Concentrates on the basic concepts of toxicology and provides sufficient information for the reader to become familiar with them in order to understand the principles and to evaluate the risks at given exposures 30% new chapters cover recent scientific and technological advances including alternatives to animal testing; genotoxic carcinogens; REACH regulations; nanomaterials; fuels; fragrances; PAHs; and agrochemicals Written by a team of international specialists, and edited by two outstanding scientists in the field Fully updated and expanded, Toxicology and Risk Assessment: A Comprehensive Introduction, Second Edition is an essential text for any student or researcher with an interest in toxicology and related risk assessments.

Science and Decisions

Science and Decisions PDF Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309120462
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 422

Get Book

Book Description
Risk assessment has become a dominant public policy tool for making choices, based on limited resources, to protect public health and the environment. It has been instrumental to the mission of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as well as other federal agencies in evaluating public health concerns, informing regulatory and technological decisions, prioritizing research needs and funding, and in developing approaches for cost-benefit analysis. However, risk assessment is at a crossroads. Despite advances in the field, risk assessment faces a number of significant challenges including lengthy delays in making complex decisions; lack of data leading to significant uncertainty in risk assessments; and many chemicals in the marketplace that have not been evaluated and emerging agents requiring assessment. Science and Decisions makes practical scientific and technical recommendations to address these challenges. This book is a complement to the widely used 1983 National Academies book, Risk Assessment in the Federal Government (also known as the Red Book). The earlier book established a framework for the concepts and conduct of risk assessment that has been adopted by numerous expert committees, regulatory agencies, and public health institutions. The new book embeds these concepts within a broader framework for risk-based decision-making. Together, these are essential references for those working in the regulatory and public health fields.

Mixture Toxicity

Mixture Toxicity PDF Author: Cornelis A. M. van Gestel
Publisher: CRC Press
ISBN: 9781439830093
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 320

Get Book

Book Description
In the last decade and a half, great progress has been made in the development of concepts and models for mixture toxicity, both in human and environmental toxicology. However, due to their different protection goals, developments have often progressed in parallel but with little integration. Arguably the first book to clearly link ecotoxicology and classic human toxicology, Mixture Toxicity: Linking Approaches from Ecological and Human Toxicology incorporates extensive reviews of exposure to toxicants, toxicokinetics and toxicodynamics, toxicity of mixtures, and risk assessment. The book examines developments in both fields, compares and contrasts their current state of the art, and identifies where one field can learn from the other. Each chapter provides an essential overview of the state of the art in both human and ecotoxicological mixture risk assessment, focusing on the work published in the last fifteen years. The coverage progresses from exposure to risk assessment, at each step identifying the special complications typically raised by mixtures. Based on in-depth discussions among specialists representing different disciplines and approaches, the chapters each address: Exposure — how to quantify the amounts of chemicals that may enter the living organism Kinetics, dynamics, and metabolism — how the chemicals enter an organism, travel within the organism, how they are metabolized and reach the target site, and explain development of toxicity with time Toxicity — what are the chemicals’ detrimental effects on the organism Test design and complex mixture characterization — how chemicals interact, how to measure effects of mixtures, and how to identify responsible chemicals Risk assessment — how to assess for risks in humans and the environment An unusual combination of different points of view on exposure to and risk assessment of chemical mixtures, this book summarizes current knowledge on combined effects of toxicant mixtures, information that is generally only available in a very fragmented form as individual journal papers. It identifies possible crosslinks and includes recommendations for mutual developments that can improve the state of knowledge on mixture toxicity and ultimately lead to better and more integrated risk assessment.

Toxicity Mechanisms, Exposure, Toxicokinetic and Risk Assessment Aspects of Metals, Toxic for Animals and Humans

Toxicity Mechanisms, Exposure, Toxicokinetic and Risk Assessment Aspects of Metals, Toxic for Animals and Humans PDF Author: Yanzhu Zhu
Publisher: Frontiers Media SA
ISBN: 2889746402
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 263

Get Book

Book Description


Scientific Frontiers in Developmental Toxicology and Risk Assessment

Scientific Frontiers in Developmental Toxicology and Risk Assessment PDF Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309070864
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 348

Get Book

Book Description
Scientific Frontiers in Developmental Toxicology and Risk Assessment reviews advances made during the last 10-15 years in fields such as developmental biology, molecular biology, and genetics. It describes a novel approach for how these advances might be used in combination with existing methodologies to further the understanding of mechanisms of developmental toxicity, to improve the assessment of chemicals for their ability to cause developmental toxicity, and to improve risk assessment for developmental defects. For example, based on the recent advances, even the smallest, simplest laboratory animals such as the fruit fly, roundworm, and zebrafish might be able to serve as developmental toxicological models for human biological systems. Use of such organisms might allow for rapid and inexpensive testing of large numbers of chemicals for their potential to cause developmental toxicity; presently, there are little or no developmental toxicity data available for the majority of natural and manufactured chemicals in use. This new approach to developmental toxicology and risk assessment will require simultaneous research on several fronts by experts from multiple scientific disciplines, including developmental toxicologists, developmental biologists, geneticists, epidemiologists, and biostatisticians.