EPA Grants $3 Million to Support Chemical Toxicity Research (NC)
(June 22, 2011) - The US Environmental Protection Agency has awarded
nearly $3 million to better understand how the liver responds to
environmental toxicants. Four academic institutions will develop
methods and tools to enhance what society knows about environmental
contaminants and the liver, the body’s waste treatment
organ.
Among other things, these methods and tools will
improve the agency’s Virtual Liver (v-Liver) chemical
toxicity prediction model. The v-Liver model estimates the
potential for chemicals to cause chronic diseases such as cancer
using innovative computer science and other technologies. The
v-Liver uses chemical data from rapid tests and published
literature to develop a state-of-the-art computer model that can
predict the potential toxicity of chemicals in a much more
efficient and effective way than current laboratory-based animal
models.
“The liver plays a front line role in
removing chemicals after they enter the human body, which means the
liver faces harmful effects if the chemical is toxic,” says
Dr. Robert Kavlock, director of EPA’s National Center for
Computational Toxicology, “Evaluating the risk of liver
toxicity due to these chemicals is critical for protecting human
health.”
There are thousands of chemicals in use and
hundreds more introduced every year. Traditional chemical toxicity
tests using animals are expensive and time consuming. Once
complete, the v-Liver model will help EPA prioritize which
chemicals need more extensive toxicity assessments and simulate the
biological response of the liver to chemical exposure.
The institutions receiving EPA funding include
the Hamner Institute in North Carolina, the University of North
Carolina at Chapel Hill, Indiana University at Bloomington, and
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. They will work
closely with EPA scientists to research how chemicals interact with
cells as they enter the liver. The results of this research will
provide the v-Liver model new data and tools to better understand
how chemicals disrupt cells in the liver, and how this leads to
disease.EPA is meeting with these institutions June 22 at its
Research Triangle Park campus in North Carolina to discuss this
project.
EPA’s STAR program funds research grants
in numerous environmental science and engineering disciplines
through a competitive solicitation process and independent peer
review. The STAR program engages the nation’s best scientists
and engineers in targeted research that complements EPA’s own
outstanding research program.
More Information
Virtual Liver: http://www.epa.gov/ncct/virtual_liver/
STAR Grants: http://epa.gov/ncer/
