TOX-30806 Environmental Toxicology

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Studiepunten 6.00

Language of instruction:

English

Continuation courses:

General Toxicology course (TOX-20303), Thesis Toxicology, Internship Toxicology

Contents:

This course gives an overview of different aspects playing a role in the challenging field of environmental toxicology. Toxicology itself already is very interdisciplinary, but environmental toxicology even adds (environmental) chemistry, earth sciences, biology of a wide range of species and ecology to this. Therefore it is not possible to go deep into details. Mechanisms of toxic action, for example, will not be a dominant aspect of this course. Special attention will be paid to ethical issues such as animal use and ethical, legal, social and policy implications of research and communications, and to job perspectives for environmental toxicologists.
The course is set-up as an integration between lectures, practicals, computer sessions, videos and excursion. The book 'Principles of Ecotoxicology' is used to develop a basis for the rest of the subjects in the course. About half of the lectures will focus on a variety of timely additional issues. In the practical part of the course you will study the toxic properties of 1 specific toxicant yourself. Applying a set of modern in vitro assays you will address the mutagenicity, cytotoxicity, estrogenicity, acetylcholine esterase-inhibiting potency and general toxicity of the compound. In addition you will perform a risk assessment of the compound involving toxic evaluation of literature data, combined with your own experimental results. This will be presented both orally as well as in a small report. The course will contain a dedicated risk assessment module for students marine sciences.

Learning outcomes:

After successful completion of this course students are able to:
- understand basic principles of environmental toxicology including the 'human-wildlife connection';
- analyze the consequences of different origins, sources and types of environmental pollutants in combination with ecosystem characteristics for the exposure of organisms (including humans);
- understand the many aspects playing a role in environmental toxicological research and the consequences for a rational choice of toxicological research methods and endpoints to study;
- apply different toxicological test systems, evaluate their results and create a risk assessment report and presentation about an toxic compound under debate;
- evaluate the relevance at population level of great or smaller toxic effects on individual life cycle parameters of species;
- demonstrate awareness of the uncertainties that policy makers are dealing with, and evaluate how they use the results of toxicological research for risk assessment;
- give due consideration to the ethical, legal, social and policy implications of environmental toxicological research and communications.

Activities:

Lectures, practicals, computer modelling, excursion, risk assessment for a specific compound, presenting results, studying the book, discussing videos. The different activities are closely related to each other.

Examination:

Electronic examination plus report.

Literature:

Principles of Ecotoxicology. Walker, Hopkin, Sibly and Peakall, 3rd edition (2006), ISBN 0-8493-3635-X.