Society of Toxicology 2019 Annual Meeting in Baltimore

Toxicologists from all over the world visit Baltimore for the Annual Meeting

KWR toxicologist Milou Dingemans attended the Annual Meeting of the Society of Toxicology. At this US-based but truly global meeting many topics were presented of relevance to water quality and health.

Milou: For the first time, SOT produced only digital material including an event app to navigate the meeting with a custum schedule, which worked very well. I selected platforms, posters and symposia from the program to learn about new toxicological information (previously unknown health effects of particular chemicals or clarification on safe levels of chemicals previously known as a chemical of emerging concern), new chemicals of emerging concern (new uses and potential release into the environment) and new chemometrics and effect-based approaches to use for water quality monitoring and risk assessment. Moreover, this was a good opportunity to meet with EPA toxicologists to discuss pending risk assessment of chemicals of interest to the Dutch water sector.

Effect-based monitoring is using methods originally used in toxicology

Effect-based monitoring of water quality is using methods originally developed for toxicological research. Milou presented a poster on the use of a battery of such effect-based tools to evaluate treatment processes for wastewater at demonstration sites of the EU AquaNES project. The poster also illustrated the possibilities of combining effect-based monitoring using bioassays with non-target screening and toxicity information from the ToxCast US EPA database to get optimal insight in chemical water quality and the potential presence of emerging contaminants.

Water Street in Baltimore.

Water meter in Baltimore.

Bioretention Bassin in Baltimore.