Thematic Approach

The Scientific Program Committee has developed a slate of timely and highly informative Symposium Sessions, Workshop Sessions, Roundtable Sessions, and other special sessions that span the spectrum of topics of interest to our diverse membership.

The 2011 scientific themes listed here illustrate the core contributions toxicology makes to these areas and the sessions that will be highlighted within these themes are indicated.

Emerging Global Public Health Issues

The global economy raises challenges to protecting human health within the United States for our regulatory agencies. Ultimately, public health issues are no longer just local issues affecting a single country or specific geographic region of the world, but have international health implications. The global public health issues theme has been selected to highlight recent advances in these areas, as well as how this knowledge is impacting regulation and policy.

• Advancing Predictive Ecotoxicology Testing and Environmental Risk Assessment in the 21st Century—Workshop Session
• Disease Prevention: The Next 50 Years—Workshop Session
• Risk and Risk Management of Potentially Toxic Compounds Formed by Cooking Food—Roundtable Session
• Risk Assessment for Proteins Introduced into Genetically Modified Crops—Workshop Session
• Role of Biomarkers in Assessing Tobacco Harm Reduction: A Toxicological Perspective—Workshop Session
• Safer Products for a Sustainable World: Linking Chemical Design and Toxicology—Workshop Session
• Translational Toxicology: Molecules to Global Health—Symposium Session

Environment and Disease

Growing evidence suggest that the environment is a significant factor in the susceptibility and progression of cardiovascular and neurodegenerative diseases and cancer. The environmental influence on disease theme has been selected to highlight recent advances in these areas as well as contrast how this knowledge is impacting regulation and policy.

• Applications of Computational Systems Biology for Toxicology—Continuing Education Course (PM09)
• Developmental Exposure to Environmental Toxicants: From Persistent Toxicities to Diseases—Symposium Session
• Developmental Origins of Adult Disease: the Effects of Low Dose Lead—Symposium Session
• Epigenetics, Metals, and Cancer—Symposium Session
• Gene-Environment Disease Interactions in Fish Models of Human Disease—Symposium Session
• Human Variability in Susceptibility to Environmental Toxicants—Symposium Session

Global Air Quality and Human Health

It is becoming increasingly apparent that air pollution is not just a local issue, but has international health implications. The goal of this theme is to integrate information on individual susceptibility, disease mechanisms and levels of exposure and to demonstrate how this information can have a significant impact on the development of global air quality policies and regulations.

• Coordinating Global Chemical Safety: the Big Four—Informational Session
• Environmental Oxidative Pollutant-Induced Pulmonary Toxicity—Symposium Session
• Metabolic Basis of Respiratory Tract Chemical Toxicity—Symposium Session

Integration of Toxicological and Epidemiological Evidence to Understand Human Risk

As novel technologies expand the range of biomarker assessments and the NAS vision for toxicity testing begins to be implemented, the integration of mechanistic laboratory animal testing and in vitro systems with human epidemiological data will require new strategies to fully utilize and integrate these data for extending the range of observations and to characterize the exposure-response of human risk. The goal of this theme is to initiate discussion on how new technologies can improve assessment of the dose-response curve and thereby improve human risk assessment from environmental exposures.

• Approaches for Incorporating Non-Chemical Stressors into Cumulative Risk Assessments—Workshop Session
• Beyond Science and Decisions: From Problem Formulation to Dose-Response—Informational Session
• Emerging Science for Environmental Health Decisions: Tools, Strategies, and Evidence—Informational Session
• New Approaches for Integrating Toxicological and Epidemiological Data to Better Inform Risk Assessment—Workshop Session
• PBPK Model Use in Risk Assessment: Why Being Published Is Not Enough—Workshop Session
• Protecting Human Health: Use of Toxicological and Epidemiological Data in Determining Safe Levels for Human Exposure—Continuing Education Course (AM06)
• Using Mode of Action Data to Guide Quantitative Cancer Risk Assessment: A Case Study of Hexavalent Chromium in Drinking Water—Workshop Session
• When Is Exposure Not Exposure? Defining the Dose-Response Region between “Effect” and “Adverse Effect” Implications for Human Health Risk Assessment—Symposium Session

Novel Approaches to Preclinical Safety Assessment: Bridging the Gap between Discovery and the Clinic through Translational Toxicology

Toxicology can play a key role in identifying and implementing advances in toxicological mechanisms, safety assessment, and biomarkers when cross-disciplinary efforts are coordinated during the drug development process. The goal of this theme is to highlight advances in toxicology that improve translation from animal models to humans.

• High Content Imaging: Applications in Toxicology and Toxicity Testing—Symposium Session
• Human Pluripotent Stem Cells and Neural Progenitors As Models of Gene-Environment Interactions in Neurological Disease—Symposium Session
• Livers on a Plate: Next Generation Hepatocyte Models for High-throughput Screening and Mode of Action Prediction—Informational Session
• Pharmaceutical Safety Assessment: Novel Methods—Poster Session
• Pharmaceutical Safety Assessment: therapeutic Agents—Poster Session
• Precision-Cut Tissue Slices Revisited: A Classical Method Meets New Challenges—Informational Session
• Stem Cell Utility in Toxicology Screening—Continuing Education Course (PM14)

Toxicity Testing: State of Science and Strategies to Improve Public Health

In order for Federal regulations to best reflect the current state of the science, toxicity testing paradigms need to adapt to the advances of science. The main challenge inherent in bringing this vision to fruition is to have testing strategies that provide sufficient context for evaluating potential risk. The goal of the toxicity testing theme is to initiate discussion on how toxicity testing could integrate state of the science methodologies and thereby reduce the uncertainties in the interpretation of toxicity-pathway data to humans.

• Bringing Toxicology to the Decision-Makers Table: Opportunities for Science Policy Positions in Washington, D.C.—Education-Career Development
• Evaluating Toxicity of Engineered Nanomaterials: Issues with Conventional Toxicology Approaches—Continuing Education Course (PM10)
• Integrating Alternative Test Methods into the Federal Regulatory Framework—Roundtable Session
• New Technologies and Approaches in Genetic Toxicology and their Expanding Role in General Toxicology and Safety Assessment—Continuing Education Course (PM11)
• Progress of the Tox21 Consortium in High-throughput Bioactivity Profiling of Chemicals—Informational Session
• Quantitative In Vitro to In Vivo Extrapolation: the Essential Element of In Vitro Assay-Based Risk Assessment—Continuing Education Course (PM13)
• The Application of the threshold of Toxicological Concern Concept to the Preclinical Safety Assessment of Non-Pharmaceutical Medical Products, Including Medical Devices and Combination Drug-Device Products—Informational Session
• The International Cooperation on Alternative Test Methods (ICATM): Translating Science to Provide Improved Public Health Safety Assessment Tools—Informational Session
• The Use of Epidemiological Data and PBPK Modeling in a Risk Assessment: Manganese As a Case Study—Symposium Session