The Toxicology Mentoring and Skills Development Training (ToxMSDT) leadership team is recruiting educators and those interested in the education of undergraduates to assist in the review and enhancement of two ToxMSDT e-learning modules, “Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics” and “Principles of Genetic Toxicology,” focusing on aspects of these topics related to toxicology.
A team of three toxicologists will be selected to develop recommendations for content updates for each module. Each team member will receive a $500 stipend, and ToxMSDT will hold the rights to the content—ToxMSDT materials are released under Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 International License.
The scope of the project includes reviewing the current module, revising text to match the new outline, enhancing the interactivity with the content, identifying appropriate images, formatting the material to sustain learner interest, producing knowledge checks, and making suggestions for extensions. The team will begin work by August 2022 and complete a draft for review and programming by October/November. We anticipate that the final product will be ready by the end of 2022.
We encourage individuals with expertise related to the revised module content described in this blog post to complete the ToxMSDT e-Learning Interest Form by July 14.
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Content Areas for Biochemistry in Toxicology
- Enzyme mechanisms
- Cytochrome p450
- Phase I and II enzymes
- Bioactivation of xenobiotics
- Regulation of drug metabolism
- Genetic factors that cause individual differences in responsiveness to xenobiotics
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Content Areas for Genetics and Epigenetics in Toxicology
- Types of DNA damage
- Oxidative stress
- Examples of chemicals that cause DNA damage
- Antibiotics that target DNA repair
- Radiation
- Repair enzymes
- Polymorphisms
- Epigenetics and epigenetic modifications
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The ToxMSDT e-Learning Oversight Committee—chaired by SOT member Mindy Reynolds, PhD—is guiding this project. SOT members Joshua Gray, PhD, and Jayanta Das, PhD, also serve on the committee. Betty Eidemiller provides staff support and is the contact for inquiries. The SOT Toxicology Learning Framework is foundational for the ToxMSDT e-learning content, which will include a One Health approach and active learning elements and follow the other guidelines developed by the Oversight Committee.
Based at UC Davis, with support from SOT and five other partners, ToxMSDT is a five-year project funded by the National Institutes of Health to increase the number of students from underrepresented groups on the pathway to careers in toxicology and the biomedical sciences. Each year, a cohort of 25 students engages in mentoring, career development, and toxicology-training activities, including reviews of the e-learning tools. Since the e-learning tools are freely available, they also are used widely by independent learners and in informal and formal toxicology instruction.
We will recruit reviewers for other modules and developers of new case studies at another time. Three or more e-learning tools will be developed in each of the next three years.