SOT Component Groups (Regional Chapters, Special Interest Groups, and Specialty Sections) and Committees host webinars throughout the year. Webinars are an effective distance-learning method intended to impart scientific knowledge to members of their group as well as the SOT membership at large. These webinars are just one of the many benefits of SOT membership.
Webinars to take place in September and October 2019 are listed below.
An Introduction to In Silico Toxicology
Host: Computational Toxicology Specialty Section (CTSS)
Date and Time: Friday, September 20, 2019, 11:00 AM–12:00 Noon (ET)
Registration is required.
In silico toxicology has a number of unique benefits compared with in vivo or in vitro methods: it is fast to run, it does not require any test material, and it often provides an understanding of the structural (and mechanistic) basis for any toxicity prediction. In addition, it has been validated as fit for purpose for specific toxicology endpoints, and there exist protocols and other documentation to support its adoption. Therefore, it is being successfully used in a variety of applications across toxicology.
This webinar will outline the process of developing and using in silico methods to predict toxicity. The two commonly used in silico methodologies, expert rule-based (or structural alerts) and statistical-based (or QSAR models), will be described. In silico models are built from existing knowledge or automatically derived from training sets of historical toxicity data. The construction of these models will be described, as well as how these models could be used to make a prediction and support an expert review. A series of case studies will be used to illustrate this process using first principles and commercial software. Thus, the following items will be discussed:
- Introduction to different methodologies
- Expert rule-based methodologies
- Statistical-based methodologies
- Predicting toxicity
- Expert review
Global Estimates of Mortality Associated with Long-Term Exposure to Outdoor Fine Particulate Matter
Host: Occupational and Public Health Specialty Section (OPHSS)
Date and Time: Wednesday, October 2, 2019, 1:00 PM–2:00 PM (ET)
Registration is required.
Exposure to ambient fine particulate matter is a global public health concern. Join OPHSS and special guest Dr. Richard Burnett for a presentation on the Global Exposure Mortality Model (GEMM) and how it was implemented to examine the association between PM2.5 and nonaccidental mortality using data from 41 cohorts from 16 countries. Dr. Burnett will describe GEMM and how it addresses many limitations associated with previous models and provides a means of quantifying the health impacts of outdoor air pollution, as well as discussing the significance of this work on outdoor air pollution as a population health risk factor.
Dr. Burnett has more than 30 years of experience working on issues related to environmental risk assessment. He is a senior research scientist with the Healthy Environments and Consumer Safety Branch of Health Canada, where he has been working since 1984. He also is an Affiliate Professor at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington. Dr. Burnett’s interests are in mathematical and statistical methods to track health risks from environmental hazards in both space and time, allowing assessments of the effectiveness of risk management strategies with respect to improvements in population health. Dr. Burnett has served on numerous US National Academy of Sciences committees and university program advisory committees. He is a member of the Global Burden of Disease expert group on outdoor air pollution and is a recipient of the Federal Public Service Excellence in Science 2012 Award and the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Medal.