EPA Communities of Practice
Exposure Science for Toxicity Testing, Screening, and Prioritization
You will need Adobe Reader to view some of the files on this page. See EPA's PDF page to learn more.
The purpose of the EPA Exposure Science Community of Practice (ExpoCoP) is to provide a forum for promoting the advancement and utilization of exposure science to address EPA’s needs for chemical screening, prioritization and toxicity testing.
ExpCoP:
- Was formed in May 2008 to advance application of exposure science to inform and support research being conducted at EPA using advancements in the field of computational toxicology.
- Advises on development of an exposure science research program to address EPA needs for chemical prioritization, screening, and toxicity testing.
- Focuses, initially, on issues associated with classifying chemicals based on potential for human exposure and linking results with the ToxCast™ chemical prioritization activity. An important component will be to consider how best to consolidate and link human exposure data.
- Includes individuals from the Office of Research and Development (ORD) Labs and Centers, from Program Offices, and from organizations outside of EPA currently involved in screening and prioritizing based on potential for human exposure or with applicable expertise in this area
- Is co-chaired by a member of the NCCT and a member of the National Exposure Research Laboratory (NERL), but draws on the expertise of scientists across ORD and the Agency as needed for specific issues.
- Meetings are held monthly, typically at EPA's RTP campus, on the second Tuesday of the month, from 11am-Noon EST/EDT. Teleconferencing is available. For more information on the ExpoCoP, or to be added to the meeting email list, contact either Elaine Cohen Hubal (hubal.elaine@epa.gov; 919-541-4077).
ExpoCoP Charter includes the following functions:
- Organize periodic meetings or conference calls (at least quarterly) around specific issues or projects, with goal of identifying state of the science, research needs, and consensus positions.
- Organize outreach to broader scientific community to demonstrate EPA's interest in exposure science for toxicity testing and to obtain input and participation.
- Report regularly to the Director of the NCCT and the ORD CTISC on issues, progress, and outputs.
ExpoCoP Goals are to provide input on the following:
- Development of key partnerships and collaborations with external groups that can facilitate development of exposure information and computational tools required to inform chemical prioritization.
- Identification of research needs to improve Agency computational resources for addressing exposure screening and prioritization.
- Creation of a consolidated EPA exposure database focused on measured concentrations in exposure and biological media.
- Standards for exposure data representation.
- Approaches for improving accessibility to EPA human exposure data and for facilitating links between exposure and toxicity data.
- Development of a curated human exposure knowledge base.
- Novel approaches for characterizing exposure to prioritize chemicals.