The National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) Superfund Research Program (SRP) is hosting a Risk e-Learning webinar series focused on the use of innovative, human-relevant technologies to better characterize the biological effects of chemicals. New technologies, including advanced cell-based assays, organoids, and computational modeling approaches, are expanding the toolbox researchers use to answer previously difficult or unanswerable questions. Presenters will discuss how these emerging methodologies are being applied to uncover mechanistic insights, improve predictive accuracy for human health outcomes, and refine risk assessment frameworks. The first session, titled Multi-Cellular Systems, Modeling, and Simulations to Advance Environmental Health Research, will feature four speakers discussing how cell-based systems, modeling, and simulations can improve researchers' understanding of complex biomedical topics, such as how chemicals interact inside the body or the cause of birth defects. Speakers include:Margaret Ochocinska, Ph.D., National Institutes of Health: Dr. Ochocinska will introduce the Complement-Animal Research In Experimentation (Complement-ARIE) Program, which aims to accelerate the development, standardization, validation and use of human-based New Approach Methodologies (NAMs) that more accurately model human biology to transform basic, translational, and clinical sciences. Complement-ARIE has already awarded $1M in a crowdsourcing prize competition, launched a $7M NAMs Reduction to Practice Challenge, and published funding opportunities to create Technology Development Centers, a NAMs Data Hub and Coordinating Center, and the Validation and Qualification Network. The Validation and Qualification Network (VQN) will be a Public Private Partnership (PPP) with the Foundation for NIH (FNIH) involving scientists at multiple levels of government (including funding agencies and regulators), industry, nongovernmental organizations, and academic institutions to accelerate adoption and implementation of NAMs in both research and regulatory contexts. The goal of the VQN is to build upon existing U.S. and international efforts to provide more cost-effective, rapid, human-relevant NAMs for drug discovery, chemical safety testing, and wider biomedical research approaches to bring NAMs products to market.Brian Johnson, Ph.D., Michigan State University: Dr. Johnson will combinatorial new approach methods to elucidate mechanisms of human thyroid hormone disruption by legacy and emerging chemical contaminants.Rebecca Fry, Ph.D., University of North Carolina: The talk will highlight how UNC Chapel Hill Superfund researchers are deploying new approach methodologies (NAMs) to improve chemical toxicity prediction and reduce reliance on traditional animal models. It will showcase UNC SRP innovations in computational toxicology, exposure science, and mechanistic assays, demonstrating how these tools accelerate risk prediction of hazardous chemicals. Jon Chorover, Ph.D., University of Arizona: Legacy mine tailings sites, which are prevalent throughout the western U.S., are potential sources for ingestion exposure to airborne arsenic-bearing particulate matter (mt-PM). Dr. Chorover's team postulated that the bioaccessibility of arsenic in mt-PM is related to its molecular speciation, which in turn, depends on weathering environment. In this webinar, Dr. Chorover discuss how we tested this hypothesis by sampling 12 sites in the western U.S. and subjecting the samples to a set of molecular spectroscopy analyses coupled to in vitro bioassays. To learn more about and register for the other sessions in this webinar series, please see the SRP site. To view this archive online or download the slides associated with this seminar, please visit http://www.clu-in.org/conf/tio/SRP-BioChem-1_010926/
