Rusyn Selected to Lead Committee Examining EPA Program

Dr. Ivan RusynDr. Ivan Rusyn, a professor of toxicology in the Texas A&M College of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences’ (CVM) Department of Veterinary Integrative Biosciences (VIBS), will chair a National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine Workshop Committee that will support changes being implemented to the United States Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) program.

The IRIS program supports the EPA’s mission of protecting human health and the environment by identifying and characterizing the health hazards of chemicals found in the environment.

The ad hoc committee chaired by Rusyn will organize two workshops that will facilitate discussions by recognized experts on specific approaches and issues related to systematic review, hazard identification, and dose-response analysis, which will assist the EPA with increasing quality, transparency, and confidence in its assessments.

“The National Academies have provided continuous advice to the EPA with respect to improving and expediting the process of reviewing the potential hazards and risks of chemical exposures,” Rusyn said. “This committee will assist the agency in its important mission of protecting public health and the environment.”

The first workshop, to be held in October, will focus on the best practices for using mechanistic data in chemical assessments. The topic of the second workshop, tentatively scheduled for March 2019, will consider additional topics related to evidence identification, the tools for systematic review, study selection for decision-making, evidence integration and dose-response analyses.

The workshop committee will include members with expertise in systematic review methods, toxicology, dose-response modeling, and risk assessment. Members will identify topics and speakers; be involved in putting out a call for posters and developing criteria for determining which posters to include; and participate in the workshops by serving as moderators, discussants, and/or speakers.

Rusyn has served on several committees for the National . Academies, including the Committee on Incorporating 21st Century Science into Risk-Based Evaluations and the Committee on the Design and Evaluation of Safer Chemical Substitutions. Most recently, he chaired the committee to review a report on the long-term health effects on U.S. Army test subjects and briefed the U.S. Department of Defense on the committee’s findings and recommendations this past April.

At Texas A&M, Rusyn also is chair of the Interdisciplinary Faculty of Toxicology degree-granting program and director of the Superfund Research Center. His laboratory has an active research portfolio that focuses on the mechanisms of action of environmental toxicants, the genetic determinants of susceptibility to toxicant-induced injury, and computational toxicology.

His studies on the health effects of environmental agents have resulted in more than 200 peer-reviewed publications. He received his MD from Ukrainian State Medical University in Kiev and his PhD in toxicology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

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Contact Information: Megan Palsa, Executive Director of Communications, Media & Public Relations, Texas A&M College of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Science;  mpalsa@cvm.tamu.edu; 979-862-4216; 979-421-3121 (cell)


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