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Computational and Molecular Approaches to Risk Assessment
Citation:
Judson, R., J. Wambaugh, K. Isaacs, AND R. Thomas. Computational and Molecular Approaches to Risk Assessment. Chapter 26, Molecular and Biochemical Toxicology 5th Edition. John Wiley & Sons Inc, Malden, MA, , 879-908, (2018).
Impact/Purpose:
Chemical risk assessment consists of several related activities including hazard identification (what adverse outcomes can a chemical trigger?); estimation of quantitative points of departure (PODs, doses that can trigger adverse outcomes); quantitative estimation of exposure of the chemical for different species and populations; and estimates of uncertainty and population variability in all of these quantities. In current practice, hazard identification and determination of PODs is almost always performed using data from in vivo studies. Exposure estimations are typically performed using a combination of environmental sampling and biomonitoring. All of these tools are relatively low-throughput, which poses a challenge given the fact that humans and other species are exposed to potentially tens of thousands of man-made chemicals, plus their metabolites and environmental degradation products. To meet the challenge of performing at least first-order risk assessments on hundreds to thousands of chemicals, a variety of high-throughput methods in bioactivity screening, dosimetry and exposure estimation are being developed. This chapter outlines basic approaches in this area, and illustrates with current and near-future uses.
Description:
Chapter in "Molecular and Biochemical Toxicology" Edition: 5th, Chapter: 26, pp.879-908, Publisher: Wiley,