Science Inventory

Translating Innovations in Toxicology into Chemical Safety Decision Making

Citation:

Thomas, R. Translating Innovations in Toxicology into Chemical Safety Decision Making. Presented at Total Exposure Health Conference, Bethesda, MD, September 06 - 07, 2018. https://doi.org/10.23645/epacomptox.7100537

Impact/Purpose:

Abstract for Total Exposure Health Conference Sep 2018

Description:

The field of toxicology has struggled with rapidly and efficiently integrating technological and computational advances into decision making due to the potential public health and regulatory implications of the underlying science. Over the past ten years, these technologies and approaches include high-throughput and high-content in vitro screening, complex tissue culture models, and computational modeling. The endpoints and uncertainties associated with these new technologies are qualitatively and quantitatively different than the traditional toxicological responses. To bridge this gap and more effectively translate advances to regulatory decisions, a multi-pronged effort is underway to systematically address limitations in in vitro test systems, characterize the uncertainty and variability associated with the new approaches as well as the existing in vivo models, and use computational modeling to integrate data at different levels of biological complexity. The application of the data and models to different decision context are occurring in partnership with regulatory scientists through the development of decision support tools and focused case studies. The talk will provide an update on the current state of the technologies and approaches as well as the effort to enable translation of the advances to chemical safety decisions. This abstract does not necessarily reflect U.S. EPA policy.