Grant: Canada Research Chairs

With an estimated 350,000 chemicals currently in use by society, as well as countless other industrial, agricultural and urban sources of pollutants, chemical contamination is one of the greatest threats to our planet. This has resulted in an accumulation of problems for the health and wellbeing of both humans and ecosystems, including an estimated 9 million premature human deaths worldwide annually. This situation is worsened by current chemical risk assessment practices that are prohibitively time consuming, costly and that rely on the sacrifice of huge numbers of live animals. The proposed research will directly address these critical issues by improving human and ecological health through transformative, transdisciplinary and ethical science. The main objectives of this CRC are to generate novel knowledge and tools that transform how we assess chemical safety and ecosystem health. It will do so by developing, calibrating, and validating new approach methods (NAMs) routed in mechanistic toxicology. Through three related research themes, the Chair will: 1) conduct transformative baseline research using cutting-edge whole transcriptome and proteome investigations, paired with traditional biological studies, to generate a comprehensive systems biology understanding of critical toxicological processes across vertebrates; 2) leverage the information generated under Theme 1 to develop ground-breaking, mechanism-based, NAMs that can predict chemical induced health risks across species (including humans) in an economic, reliable, and ethical manner; and 3) establish a collaborative One Health toxicology research stream that employs a design-thinking approach and uses the NAMs developed under Theme 2 to assess chemical safety at the interface of humans, wildlife, and their environments. The research will be guided and co-designed by end-users and communities, who will contribute to calibrating and validating NAMs using field and laboratory experimental approaches tailored to their specific needs. End-users will be essential for the adoption of the NAMs into the current regulatory landscape, particularly for tackling real problems in local communities, such as access to clean water, air, and safe food. By developing and applying NAMs in a variety of contexts, this CRC will catalyze a paradigm shift in toxicology that revolutionizes chemical safety assessments, streamlines regulatory processes, and makes for a safer planet.