Information, Translation, and Knowledge-Delivery
EPA's safer chemicals research generates large volumes of useful chemical information and data. Information, Translation, and Knowledge-Delivery (ITK) research develops novel, efficient approaches to present, manage, and use large data streams in support of chemical safety assessments. This research aims to develop online tools and resources to help scientists, risk assessors and policy makers have increased capability to collaborate and find solutions to public and environmental health problems related to chemicals.
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Research Efforts
View recent ITK-related research publications
New Approach Methods (NAMs), (i.e., experiments to reduce the use of animal testing) and expanding amounts of traditional hazard and exposure data enable more informed chemical safety decisions when data are accessible and can be integrated. The Information, Translation and Knowledge-Delivery (ITK) research area integrates and translates chemical information to better inform needs for cross-disciplinary tools and knowledge. Work from across the Chemical Safety for Sustainability National Research Program portfolio is brought together and translated for use in chemical safety decision making, ranging from prioritization to risk determinations.
Great impact can be realized when data and models that span scientific domains are brought together for a specific application, decision context, or to investigate a hypothesis. In addition, demonstrating the utility of work products to end users through applied case studies can maximize the value of investments in research. Work includes integrated efforts in the form of decision-support tools, workflows or case studies, such as the Public Information Curation and Synthesis (PICS) Approach for Chemical Prioritization and the Accelerating the Pace of Chemical Risk Assessment (APCRA) workgroup.
Also within ITK, the NAMs Training Program builds upon previous examples of successful, single-tool engagement strategies to develop a engagement strategy for EPA's suite of NAMs tools. This training project is part of a larger effort to improve science communications in ORD focused on involving and collaborating with stakeholders. The goal is to train the scientific community, internal partners, and external groups on how to access and use ORD research including online applications, databases, data, and other research outputs.
Focused outreach to increase awareness and utility of data, models, and tools will support the goal of seeing the greatest impact of the investment in research. Demonstrating and facilitating the use of mature research from all areas of research in the Safer Chemicals research portfolio through communications, training, and other forms of education will encompass this work.
Innovative Science to Support New Chemicals Evaluation
This research also contributes to modernizing the information used in decisions related to new chemical submissions through the New Chemicals Collaborative Research Program. The review of new chemical substances prior to their introduction into U.S. commerce is required under the TSCA legislation (Section 5). Research refines and updates the approaches, methods, and tools used to evaluate the chemistry, environmental release/fate, hazard (human health and ecological), and exposure (environmental and human [occupational, general population, and consumers]) of new chemicals and efficiently integrate this information to evaluate the human and environmental risks.
Tools and Resources
Training
The New Approach Methods (NAMs) Training Catalog contains training materials and resources for computational toxicology research, tools, and databases.
Generalized Read-Across (GenRA)
GenRA is an automated approach to make reproducible read-across predictions of toxicity.
Computational Toxicology (CompTox) Chemicals Dashboard
The CompTox Chemicals Dashboard contains chemistry, toxicity, and exposure information for over one million chemicals, with over 300 chemical lists based on structure or category.
Ecotoxicology (ECOTOX) Knowledgebase
The ECOTOX Knowledgebase is a comprehensive database that provides information on adverse effects of single chemical stressors to ecologically relevant aquatic and terrestrial species.