Environmental Toxicology: from Paracelsus to Probabilistic Risk Assessment

The need to address issues surrounding environmental pollution caused the fields of toxicology and chemistry to find new common ground in the filed known as Environmental Toxicology.  For the last three decades scientists and engineers from quite diverse backgrounds have collaborated to determine which stressors have adverse effects on environmental systems.  Early activities sought to determine the nature of chemical toxicity in laboratory settings and the extent of pollutant distributions.  With improvements in environmental chemistry and ecology techniques the filed matured to the point that toxic responses could be evaluated in the field.  Current practices now employ molecular modeling, metabolomics, pharmacokinetics, environmental chemistry, ecology, transport modeling, ecological modeling, and probabilistic risk assessment.  Each of these topic will be included in this session.

For more information contact:

George P Cobb
The Institute of Environmental and Human Health
Department of Environmental Toxicology
PO Box 41163
Texas Tech University
Lubbock, TX 79409

806-885-0226
george.cobb@tiehh.ttu.edu