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Advancing computational toxicology in a regulatory setting: A selected review of the accomplishments of Gilman D. Veith (1944-2013)
Citation:
Bradbury, S., C. Russom, P. Schmieder, T. Schultz, R. Diderich, AND C. Auer. Advancing computational toxicology in a regulatory setting: A selected review of the accomplishments of Gilman D. Veith (1944-2013). Applied In Vitro Toxicology. Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., Larchmont, NY, 1(1):16-25, (2015).
Impact/Purpose:
This is an invited paper for a special issue in memoriam of Dr. Gilman Veith. This paper highlights Dr. Gilman Veith’s vision, leadership, and focus to advance the development and implementation of (Q)SARs in the mission of environmental protection during his career at EPA. The foundation of the QSAR program was the recognition that the research needed to define and meet the scientific uncertainties and gaps within the applied context of EPA’s legislative and regulatory framework. This was essential to ensure resultant research products could be practically implemented in a way that would in fact meet the regulatory needs under TSCA.
Description:
Gilman Veith joined the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and its Office of Research and Development, in 1972. Spanning 30 years of public service with EPA through 2003, Gil’s accomplishments in leading multidisciplinary research teams to successfully address a broad spectrum of environmental protection challenges facing the United States and global partners is almost impossible to summarize. In this article we attempt to highlight Gil’s vision, leadership, and focus to advance the development and implementation of (Q)SARs in the mission of environmental protection during his career at EPA. As other articles in this special edition summarize, his leadership and impact at the national and international level continued unabated after his retirement. While we attempt in this brief summary to do justice to Gil’s leadership in QSAR research at EPA and the scale of his impact in the QSAR field, it is even more remarkable that during much of the time with EPA, Gil was also leading and managing research efforts across a broad array of issues of national importance. A few examples of the areas Gil led included efforts that established national water quality monitoring programs for streams, lakes, and the Great Rivers and Great Lakes; advanced water quality criteria approaches for nutrients and sediments; developed mass-balance models for the US Great Lakes to inform and assess remediation plans; and promoted watershed-scale impairment diagnostics and restoration assessments (e.g., Environmental Monitoring and Assessment Program) that addressed the sustainability of ecosystems and human wellbeing. Gil’s leadership in these areas brought together diverse teams of chemists, engineers, ecologists, toxicologists, sociologists, and economists from across EPA laboratories, Program and Regional Offices; Federal, State, Tribal and local governmental agencies; universities and stakeholders.
