Toxicology Excellence for Risk Assessment (TERA)

2300 Montana Avenue, Suite 409, Cincinnati OH 45211
Phone: 513-542-7475
Fax: 513-542-7487

Email:
TERA@TERA.org

 

Dose Response Assessment Boot Camp

What is Dose-Response Assessment Boot Camp?  

It is a new initiative providing  intensive, in-depth hands-on training in hazard characterization and dose-response assessment for human health risk assessments.  This week-long course with emphasis on dose response assessment is based on our popular chemical risk assessment training sessions developed and presented to various audiences in the past decade.  It is designed to provide systematic training in current assessment practices as well as in the latest methods in human health chemical risk assessments.  The course is for beginners through experienced toxicological risk   assessors who wish to learn advanced methods and enhance their understanding and skills in the basics.  The students will learn all aspects of hazard characterization and dose response assessment, and practice the skills learned in the classroom.  Upon completing the course, the participants will be able to derive and evaluate risk values and supporting documentation for non-cancer and cancer risk assessments and will receive a certificate documenting their successful completion of the course.  Five Certification Management (CM) points are available from the American Board of Industrial Hygienists (ABIH).   It is also worth 4 Continuing Education Units (CEU).  Click here for a Boot Camp Brochure.

Current Courses

  • Next  course will be offered in early summer or early fall 2009, check back soon for details!

Who should attend?

  1. Risk assessors and toxicologists who conduct and write chemical assessments 

  2. Risk assessors and toxicologists who review chemical assessments  

  3. Risk managers or policymakers who use the results of chemical assessments and want to fully understand the processes involved in risk value development

 

Participant requirements - participants should have:

  1. A basic understanding of toxicology    

  2. An interest in developing their skills in human health risk assessment

 

What you will learn 

1.  Non-cancer and Cancer Risk Assessment Principles and Methods:  Learn how to  critically analyze effect data, understand toxicokinetic data and their use in understanding mode of action (MOA) and developing risk values. Learn how to incorporate uncertainty factors, utilize frameworks for considering MOA and human  relevance, and learn information synthesis approaches for hazard characterization and critical study identification, and calculation of risk values for non-cancer (e.g., reference doses or tolerable intakes) and cancer endpoints (e.g., cancer slope factors). Learn the latest methodologies used in dose-response assessment. 

 2.  Dosimetric Adjustment Methods in Dose Response:  Learn how to develop interspecies oral dose adjustments for non-cancer and cancer assessment, cancer unit risk or slope factor conversion, inhalation exposure concentration unit conversion, and human equivalent concentration (HEC) calculation for particle and vapor exposure using various modeling approaches.  Applications of the results of physiologically-based pharmacokinetic (PBPK) modeling will also be introduced. 

 3.  Benchmark Dose (BMD) Modeling and Application in Risk Assessment:   Learn how to do BMD modeling for non-cancer and cancer dose-response assessments and get hands-on experience using the latest EPA software.  Learn how to appropriately apply BMD modeling, choose models and parameters, select data and run models, and select the appropriate BMD as a point of departure in a human health risk assessment.  The course addresses all of the models in the EPA software, including dichotomous continuous, cancer, and nested models.

4.  Principles for the Application of Uncertainty Factors and Chemical Specific Adjustment Factor (CSAF) Methodology: Learn the concept of uncertainty factors and how they are used in non-cancer risk and safety assessment by USEPA and other organizations, and how data are used to   support values other than defaults.  Learn how to develop and use CSAFs according to the methods of the International Programme on Chemical Safety (IPCS), which includes the use of mechanistic and toxicokinetic data to replace default uncertainty factors for interspecies extrapolation and intraspecies variability in deriving risk values such as RfDs and Tolerable Concentrations (TCs).   

5.  Comprehensive Risk Assessment Practice with Peer Review:  Learn to develop, present and review a comprehensive non-cancer and cancer assessment for a complex sample chemical over the course of the entire week.

 

Look at the Frequently Asked Questions for more details or for more information, please contact Ms. Patricia Nance at 513-542-7475 x25 or nance@tera.org or for specific course content contact Dr. Lynne Haber at 513-542-7475 x 17 or haber@tera.org.


 

Last updated:  10/29/2008

 

                                 © 2008 Toxicology Excellence for Risk Assessment