Risk Assessment Specialty Section
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Message from the President
As we move beyond the 50th anniversary of the Society of Toxicology (SOT), the Risk Assessment Specialty Section (RASS) remains one of the largest specialty sections, with a membership that includes a diverse multidisciplinary group of scientists. We bring together a group that is truly a mix from academia, government and non-governmental organizations including industry and consulting. And what an exciting time to be involved in the field of risk assessment, as we continue to face the challenges of translating our evolving knowledge of science into protection of public health and regulatory action.
As we move into the next year for RASS, the officers and I continue to think that mentoring of the new generation of risk assessors is of utmost importance, and we are working to develop ways to increase students’ involvement. We are currently revising our by-laws to formalize the terms of involvement for graduate and postdoctoral students. In addition, we are adding a graduate and a postdoctoral position to the nomination and voting process for our members, so our members can play a larger role in the identification of students interested in playing a more active role in RASS. We also will continue to provide awards for our student members and are extremely grateful to our continued sponsors and endowment funds that allow RASS to sustain these awards.
Another priority for 2011–2012 is to increase RASS’ collaboration with other specialty sections and societies, in turn increasing the interaction among scientists involved in various aspects of risk assessment. For the 2012 Annual Meeting, a workshop was developed that is a collaborative effort between RASS and the SETAC Human Health Risk Assessment Advisory Group. The goal of this workshop is to highlight challenges currently facing the next generation of risk assessors. With the release of the recent National Academy of Sciences Silver Book, risk assessors are faced with the challenge of integrating innovative data (e.g., genomics) into the current risk assessment paradigms and with the development of new paradigms or methods to address changing issues in risk assessment. In considering all the biological changes and scientific information, many of these new methods attempt to incorporate all of the available scientific information for a compound or even for mixtures. This type of integration can be used to better inform both human health and ecological risk assessments. The goal of this workshop is to provide information on new programs and approaches within regulatory agencies, as well as in the private sector, that rely on the integration of human, animal or ecological data.
I am so honored to serve as your President over the next year and extend my sincerest thanks to the members who are providing support as our team of 2011–2012 officers. I also extend our sincerest thanks to Annie Jarabek as she continues to organize and host our popular webinar series. I welcome any and all input from our members on areas they feel should be addressed by RASS over the coming year, as well as concepts or ideas for our upcoming 2012 annual reception.
Robinan Gentry, Ph.D., DABT
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