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Grant Awarded
EPA Establishes National Center for Computational Toxicology and Announces Grant Awards and Solicitation for Bioinformatics Center
November 3, 2004
Michael Brown (brown.michael@epa.gov); (202) 564-6766
Washington, D.C. - EPA Science Advisor and Assistant Administrator for Research and Development Dr. Paul Gilman today announced the establishment of the EPA National Center for Computational Toxicology. The Center will advance the science needed to more quickly and efficiently evaluate the potential risk of chemicals to human health and the environment. The center will coordinate and implement EPA's research on computational toxicology to provide tools to conduct more rapid risk assessments and improve the identification of chemicals for testing that may be of greatest risk.
"By bringing together resources devoted to computational toxicology under a national center, we can accelerate this research program to improve risk assessment for environmental contaminants," said Dr. Gilman. "With advances in computational toxicology, the public and environment will significantly benefit, policy makers will have better and more timely information on chemical stressors and animal testing will be reduced. The program is already producing data, which are being used in EPA's air program," he said.
The national center will be located at EPA's research campus in Research Triangle Park, N.C. The center will consolidate the majority of the computational toxicology research being funded and conducted by the Agency under a single organization and will coordinate the development of new research projects to expand this area of research. The computational toxicology program, including the center, has a budget of approximately $13 million in the FY2005 President's Budget Request.
To accomplish its objectives, the National Center for Computational Toxicology will work to develop partnerships with organizations in the public and private sectors to leverage available resources and bring complementary expertise to building a computational toxicology program. More information about EPA's computational toxicology program is available at http://www.epa.gov/comptox/
Dr. Gilman also announced the award of $2.25 million for three grants to conduct computational toxicology research. He also announced that proposals are being sought to establish the Environmental Bioinformatics Research Center.
Three grants have been awarded related to innovative approaches using computational methods to identify hazards and assess risks from endocrine disrupting chemicals. The grants were awarded through EPA's Science to Achieve Results or STAR research grants program. The research projects will use systems biology approaches focused on two specific endocrine pathways. Systems biology uses computational methods to create an integrated physiologic and biochemical model of an organism's or cell's biology. The new approaches will make it possible to study normal biological processes and discover how environmental chemicals, such as endocrine disrupting chemicals, can change these processes, disrupt pathways and lead to diseases or other adverse health effects.
Grants have been awarded to:
- Michigan State University, East Lansing, Mich., $750,000 – Researchers will use a small fish model to study chemically induced changes in gene expression patterns in cells, tissues, and organs that play a pivotal role in a particular endocrine pathway. [Project Abstract]
- Michigan State University, East Lansing, Mich., $748,000 – Researchers will use a rat model to study changes in gene expression caused by estrogenic endocrine disruptors and develop a computational model to integrate the data. [Project Abstract]
- University of Florida, Gainesville, Fla., $746,000 – Researchers will develop a systems biology model of the fathead minnow response to endocrine disruptors. [Project Abstract]
As part of its STAR program, EPA is now accepting applications for an Environmental Bioinformatics Research Center to enhance the field of computational toxicology by developing and applying innovative computational methods to data from molecular biology and other studies. The research will focus on improving understanding of the linkages in the continuum between the source of a chemical in the environment and adverse health and ecological outcomes; provide predictive models for screening and testing of chemicals; and improve human health and ecological risk assessments. The deadline for submitting proposals is February 24, 2005. For more information on this request for applications, visit the Web site: http://www.epa.gov/ncer/.
EPA relies on quality science as the basis for sound policy and decision-making. EPA's laboratories and research centers, and EPA's research grantees, are building the scientific foundation needed to support the Agency's mission to safeguard human health and the environment.