TOX-30806 Environmental Toxicology

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Studiepunten 6.00

Language of instruction:

English

Continuation courses:

TOX-20303 General Toxicology; 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. 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, practical's, 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 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 expected to:
- know the most relevant terms and methods in environmental toxicological research and governance;
- know the main sources and types of environmental pollutants;
- understand the basic principles of environmental toxicology including the 'human-wildlife connection' and risk assessment;
- understand the relevance of compound, ecosystem and organism characteristics for the consequences of environmental contamination;
- perform practical experiments in a comprehensive way;
- analyse and critically discuss the results of practical experiments and report (written);
- assess the environmental and human risk for a topical environmental contamination case in a written and oral presentation;
- give due consideration to the ethical, legal, social and policy implications of environmental toxicological research, uncertainties and communication;
- design an experimental approach with meaningful endpoints to assess the environmental and human risk for a topical environmental contamination case.

Activities:

- lectures, practical's;
- excursion, risk assessment for a specific compound;
- presenting results, studying the book;
- discussing ethical issues and videos.
The different activities are closely related to each other.

Examination:

The final mark exam will be based on an electronic exam (60%) covering the content of the book, the lectures and the practical's, the performance during the practical work (10%), the practical reports (15%) and the risk assessment reports (15%).

Literature:

Walker, C.H.; Sibly, R.M.; Hopkin, S.P.; Peakall, D.B. (2006). Principles of Ecotoxicology. Taylos & Francis Group, LLC. 3rd ed. 344p.
ISBN 0-8493-3635-5.