Types of Toxicologist: descriptive and mechanistic
Short review and definition of toxicologist has been explained in Toxicologist: roles and jobs. As explained before, a toxicologist has a very crucial role in determining every aspects for risk assessment. Several types of toxicologist are descriptive, mechanistic, forensic, environmental, regulatory and food toxicology. This post will cover descriptive and mechanistic toxicology.
Descriptive Toxicology
Descriptive toxicologist are involved in obtaining toxicological information from toxicology study (animal laboratory study and experimentation). These types of study focus on establishing dose-response relationships and may involve either acute or chronic exposure to a toxic substance. Identification and quantification are done at this step by measuring a particular response. Several factors that need to be addressed are included changes in the route of exposure (inhalation, dermal contact, ingestion), species of test animal (rats, mice, etc), age, sex and other variables. These variables are evaluated to determine their effect on toxicity of a substance. The information will then be used by agencies such as EPA, OSHA or FDA to establish regulatory exposure limits.
Mechanistic Toxicology
Mechanistic toxicology is an area that specialize in studying on how toxic susbtances cause their effects towards target organs. There are several things that can influence the effects of exposure. They are solubility of the substance in water or fatty tissues, the size of the molecule, and the specific tissue type and cellular components affected. Understanding the properties of the toxic substance is crucial for the understanding of the mechanism of action and for determining if the effects observed in one species of test animal are applicable to others, such as human, including how to extrapolate data or information from animal test. Good examples can be represented by mechanism of esposure to organochlorine and organophosphate pesticides, when these two substances are similar for insects, mice, rats and humans. As a result, the toxicity to humans can be predicted, and safe levels of exposure can developed based upon how these pesticides produce their effects in other organisms.
