Joint IAS / NERC Workshop: How to discover Adverse Outcome Pathways from molecular & gene response networks in systems biology to best govern the use of chemicals & nanoparticles

Location
Hornton Grange, Worcester Room
Dates
Tuesday 25 November 2014 (09:00-18:00)
AOPs

Workshop Leader(s): Professor Mark Viant and Professor John Colbourne

Traditional approaches to assessing the impacts of chemicals and nanomaterials on humans and our environment comprise a series of toxicity assays conducted on sentinel species. Such approaches suffer from multiple limitations: the tests are slow, can be expensive and information-poor, and provide limited insight into the mechanisms of toxicity.

New molecular technologies now exist that have the potential to revolutionise toxicity testing and environmental monitoring. So called “omics” technologies – including genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics and metabolomics – offer 21st century strategies for gaining a deep, rich insight into the mechanisms of toxicity by measuring the expression of 10,000’s of genes and the levels of 1,000’s of metabolites in an organism. Furthermore, in 2010, a conceptual framework termed Adverse Outcome Pathways (AOPs) was pioneered that enabled molecular data to be linked mechanistically to so-called “phenotypic responses” of organisms (such as growth and reproduction) to toxicants, and even to population and community responses.

This workshop will introduce the concept of AOPs in toxicology, with relevant examples, as well as state-of-the-art network biology approaches. The attendees will then discuss how molecular networks derived from the computational analyses of ‘omics data can be integrated into an AOP framework. Finally, the workshop will begin to address the question of how these mechanism-based AOPs can help to govern the 'tolerable risk' of chemicals and nanomaterials more rigorously and precisely than previously achievable.

To register to attend this workshop please email Sarah Jeffery.