Citation:

Henderson, Matt AND B. Wetmore. Exploring Integration of New Approach Methodologies in Chemical Risk Assessment. 2021 International Conference on Toxicity Testing Alternatives and Translational Toxicology (TATT), Virtual, CHINA, July 04 - 07, 2021.

Impact/Purpose:

Matthew Henderson was invited by the organizing committee for the 2021 (The 5th) International Conference on Toxicity Testing Alternatives & Translational Toxicology (TATT) in China.  Matthew was asked to present a lecture similar topic he delivered at the Birmingham University in March, i.e., “Chemical Regulation within the US EPA and Contaminants of Emerging Concern” with the addition of non-animal approach policy of EPA (NAMs strategic plan to reduce animal testing) and some NAMs technical part his laboratory is involved in.

Description:

Following the passage of the Lautenberg Chemical Safety Act, which reauthorized the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), the US Environmental Protection Agency has been tasked with reducing reliance on animal-based testing methods in regulatory decision-making.  With the number of existing commercial chemicals lacking data along with annual increases in new chemical submissions, strategies that can adequately and reliably translate measured in vitro responses to in vivo effects remain a priority.  To this aim, ongoing research efforts are advancing the employment and validation of in vitro assays, in silico tools, and biological systems-based approaches that afford a more rapid assessment of chemical risk.  As a whole, these efforts have been termed New Approach Methods or NAMs.  Current research efforts in the Office of Research and Development’s (ORD’s) Center for Environmental Measurement and Modeling (Athens, GA) and Center for Computational Toxicology and Exposure (Durham, NC) include, but are not limited to, using metabolomic approaches to validate microelectrode assays in predicting developmental neurotoxicity (DNT), providing data quantifying both metabolic conversions and plasma-protein binding informing computational High-Throughput Toxicokinetic (HTTK) models for emerging contaminants, and developing dermal uptake models for pesticides in amphibians.  Finally, work is ongoing to elucidate adverse outcome pathways (AOPs) that can aid in mapping in vitro derived data to key molecular, biochemical, and cellular events translatable across chemical classes as well as across species.  This presentation will provide a brief overview and discussion of ORD’s ongoing advances in the incorporation of NAMs in regulatory decision-making support as well as how we are expanding and refining our current tools to address ongoing challenges. 

Record Details: