 Just how do they survive in that water!?
Water quality in urban areas can sometimes be adversely
impacted by human activity. When streams are impacted, what happens to the
fish? In the case of the Atlantic killifish (Fundulus heteroclitus), CSS scientists found that over just a few decades, distinct populations of
the fish independently developed similar genetic adaptations that make life
possible in the most unlikely environments. Understanding how certain
species can adapt and why others can’t will help us understand the long term
impacts of pollution on biodiversity. Read more about how CSS scientists studied
killifish that have developed traits to tolerate toxic pollutants in their
habitat in these high impact publications in Molecular
Ecology and Science.
CBC Radio even picked up on these studies here!
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 Evaluating Developmental Neurotoxicity Hazard: Better than Before
CSS
scientists are conducting groundbreaking research that will help evaluate
chemical hazards better, faster and cheaper. To do this, CSS scientists grew
neural networks in their laboratory that show the promise of helping to screen
thousands of chemicals in the environment that are yet to be characterized for
developmental neurotoxicity hazard through traditional methods. Read more about
the innovative research in an Editor’s
Highlight in Toxicological Sciences.
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 Finding Known Unknowns: EPA's CompTox Chemistry Dashboard is Best!
A known unknown is
a chemical that we know exists in the
environment but doesn’t have information readily available (unknown) on its impacts to human health
and the environment. However, sometimes we actually DO have information on a
chemical… it is just hard to find. CSS
scientists are reducing the uncertainty about these oxymoronic chemicals by
providing tools to quickly search public databases and determine the likelihood
that the chemical is among the knowns. The
U.S. EPA’s
CompTox Chemistry Dashboard and the Royal Society of Chemistry’s ChemSpider are both capable of this type
of search and can rank-order hits based on relevant chemical criteria. Read how
the EPA’s Dashboard offered an advantage over ChemSpider to search for hard to
identify chemicals using data
source ranking. You can even check it out on your iPad
or iPhone!
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There have been a few
personnel changes at the helm of the CSS Program. In early January, Tina
Bahadori was appointed as Director of ORD’s National Center for Environmental
Assessment (NCEA). At the same time, Dr. Jeffrey Frithsen was appointed
as the interim National Program Director for CSS. Previously, Jeff was
the Associate Director for Ecology and Special Projects Coordinator within
NCEA. Although new to the CSS team, Jeff has over 30 years’ experience in
the environmental sciences arena, spanning both ecological and human health
topics. Much of that work has focused on assessment related activities
that directly inform environmental management decisions.
CSS welcomes back Dr. Elaine
Cohen-Hubal as the Deputy National Program Director. John Cowden, who
acted in that position for the past year, returns to his full-time position as
the CSS Matrix Interface lead for ORD’s National Center for Computational
Toxicology (NCCT).
The CSS team is focused on advancing the science of chemical
assessment providing the information needed to inform decisions made by the
Agency, our state co-regulators, and other stakeholders.
 Society of Toxicology
(SOT): March 11-16, 2017
CSS scientists will showcase their research at the SOT 56th
Annual Meeting in Baltimore.
U.S. EPA will host several special events in conjunction
with SOT, including a joint-meeting of CSS researchers and Science to Achieve
Results (STAR) grantees to discuss organotypic
and three-dimensional cell culture systems on March 11th.
Visit our exhibit booth for informative research factsheets
and live demonstrations of some of CSS web-based tools including CompTox
Dashboard, RapidTox, AOP Wiki, EcoTox, and Seqapass. A concise schedule can be
found on the EPA website.
CSS Scientists Honored at SOT Annual Meeting
Congratulations to our CSS scientists who are being honored with
awards including John Wambaugh (Biological
Modeling Specialty Section Best Paper), Will Boyes (Career Achievement
Award), and Jeremy Leonard (Trainee Award).
CSS posters also received recognition from the Risk
Assessment Specialty Section (listed below). Information about the SOT Annual
Meeting and conference materials are available on the SOT conference
webpage.
- Cross-Species Integration of Human Health and
Ecological Endpoints Using the Aggregate Exposure Pathway (AEP) and Adverse
Outcome Pathway (AOP) Frameworks to Advance Risk Assessment. D.E. Hines, S.W.
Edwards, R.B. Conolly, and A.M. Jarabek.
- Developing a Rich Definition of the Person/
Residence to Support Models of Consumer Product Usage. P.S. Price, K.L.
Dionisio, H. Hubbard, and G. Graham
- Application of Quantitative Adverse Outcome
Pathways to Rapid Screening for Adverse Outcome. R.B. Conolly, G.T. Ankley, W.
Cheng, M. Mayo, D.H. Miller, E.J. Perkins, D.L. Villeneuve, and K.H. Watanabe.
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 Global Chemical Regulations Conference: February 22 – 24, 2017
EPA scientists recently presented at the 2017 Global Chemical Regulations Conference in Washington, DC. The focus of the conference was Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act which amends the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), the Nation’s primary chemicals management law. Russell Thomas, Director of EPA’s National Center for Computational Toxicology (NCCT), and CSS scientists, including Grace Patlewicz, are leading innovative research to help evaluate existing chemicals and enable safer and more sustainable use of new chemicals. Learn more about EPA’s Computational Toxicology Research.
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EPA
has been developing new computational toxicology methods to prioritize chemicals for testing. One example of this effort is
the Endocrine Disruptor Screening Program in the 21st century (EDSP21) which
uses the latest computational toxicology methods to evaluate chemicals for
potential endocrine disruption. Read a blog about recent CSS research in this area focused on
evaluating chemicals for thyroid disruption.
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