Course Description

This course introduces the concept of chemical risk assessment and provides an overview of current frameworks considered by regulatory authorities. Students will develop a common vocabulary and basic understanding of risk assessment and its use in decision making. The initial phase of a risk assessment, the Problem Formulation phase, is emphasized. 

Prerequisites: Students need a bachelor's degree in environmental science, toxicology, biology, chemistry, or a related discipline, or they must have equivalent scientific and technical experience from work or other educational and training programs.

Course Description

This course presents and discusses classic historical cases or topics in toxicology from a risk perspective.  It focuses on lessons learned and how that has helped improve current chemical risk assessment principles and approaches.  It also covers key regulatory systems and discusses similarities and differences in approaches. The importance of proper Problem Formulation is emphasized. 

Prerequisites: Students need a bachelor's degree in environmental science, toxicology, biology, chemistry, or a related discipline, or they must have equivalent scientific and technical experience from work or other educational and training programs.  Ideally, TOX 870.3 should be taken first.

Course Description

The course will introduce students to the variety of organic and inorganic chemicals that can be of concern from an ecological risk assessment perspective. By looking at the major classes of chemicals, students will be introduced to the concepts of chemical sources and emissions, chemical movement or transport in the environment, and the ultimate degradation of chemicals or their final resting place in environmental reservoirs.

Prerequisites:  One course in ecology or environmental biology and one course in general or environmental chemistry, or permission of the instructor.

Course Description

This course will introduce students to the fundamental principles of toxicology and ecotoxicology, including toxicodynamics, systemic toxicology, molecular-, cellular-, organ-, individual- and population-level effects, mechanisms of toxicity, estimation of toxicity endpoints and benchmarks, direct and indirect effects, bioavailability and bioaccumulation, experimental approaches for generation of ecotoxicity data, categories of pollutants (case studies), assessment of terrestrial and aquatic systems, functional ecosystem endpoints, and energy transfer in ecosystems.

Prerequisites:  Students need a bachelor's degree in environmental science, toxicology, biology, chemistry, or a related discipline, or they must have equivalent scientific and technical experience from work or other educational and training programmes. Students must also have completed TOX 870.3 and 871.3 (or equivalent) if they are enrolled in the entire MRA program or have obtained comparable knowledge through employment or other training.

Course Description

This course will provide the knowledge necessary to conduct, evaluate and interpret human exposure assessments of chemicals present in both natural and built environments.  Human health risk assessment is now playing a major role in the environmental management of chemicals, from both operational and regulatory perspectives.  The quantitative assessment of potential health risk is now routine for chemicals in ambient air, indoor air, drinking water, commercial and country foods, soil, indoor dust, and innumerable consumer products (drugs, medical and dental devices and materials, pesticides, cosmetics, natural health products (nutraceuticals), tobacco products, nutritional supplements, building materials, paints and coatings, etc.). 

Prerequisites: Students need a bachelor's degree in environmental science, toxicology, biology, chemistry, health sciences, or a related discipline, or they must have equivalent scientific and technical experience from work or other educational and training programs.

Course Description

Human hazard characterization begins after a toxicological or epidemiological study has identified the most sensitive organ/receptor and the dose at which this organ is adversely affected.  Based on that dose, human hazard assessment must then transfer this knowledge to a form that can be used to assess the risk to humans based on a dose.  This course will provide the expertise necessary to derive an estimate of a safe human exposure dose based on a key toxicological study.

Prerequisites:  Students need a bachelor's degree in environmental science, toxicology, biology, physiology, health sciences, or a related discipline, or they must have equivalent scientific and technical experience from work or other educational and training programs.

Course Description

The course will introduce students to the most commonly applied approaches, predictive models, and computational tools to characterize chemical exposure and hazard. Particular emphasis will be placed on understanding of uncertainties and limitations of models, as well as the process for selecting models of an adequate level of complexity for the task at hand.

Prerequisites: Students need a bachelor's degree in environmental science, toxicology, biology, chemistry, or a related discipline, or they must have equivalent scientific and technical experience from work or other educational and training programs.  They must also have completed TOX 872 and TOX 873, or equivalent.

Course Description

In this course, students apply the skills they have obtained in earlier courses related to characterizing the exposome to real-world risk assessment scenarios. This will be achieved by engaging students in an active learning experience that is modeled after a typical project life cycle as would be common in a professional work environment. This active learning experience will take place in collaboration with an academic mentor from either the University of Saskatchewan or Aarhus University.

Course Description

In this course students apply the skills they have obtained in earlier courses related to characterizing hazards of chemicals based on real-world risk assessment scenarios. This will be achieved by engaging students in an active learning experience that is modeled after a typical project life cycle as would be common in a professional work environment. This active learning experience will take place in collaboration with an academic mentor from either the University of Saskatchewan or Aarhus University.

Course Description

This course will introduce students to major global regulatory frameworks that play a key role in how risk assessments are conducted to support regulatory and policy related decision making. The focus will be on North American and European frameworks, but there will be some exposure to other regulatory frameworks used elsewhere in the world. Students will also have the opportunity to explore such frameworks in more detail themselves in the case studies they will be working on as part of their assignments.

Course Description

This course pulls together key material from all previous courses in the Chemical Risk Assessment program and discusses how it is integrated into a final risk characterization. It also covers risk perception, communication and management, and New Approach Methodologies (NAMs) poised to play key roles in future chemical risk assessments and nascent sustainable chemical policies. A final project proposal is also developed.

Prerequisites: Students need a bachelor's degree in environmental science, toxicology, biology, chemistry, or a related discipline, or they must have equivalent scientific and technical experience from work or other educational and training programs. Students must also have completed at least 4 courses (12 CU) from the Chemical Risk Assessment program to enroll in this course or have obtained comparable knowledge through employment or other training.

Course Description:

This course consists entirely of a single, complete risk assessment performed by students working in small groups. The assessment can be either prospective or retrospective in nature but must be based on a real situation. Each group will be paired with another group, and they shall provide constructive feedback to each other on drafts during the writing process.

Prerequisites:  This course in only open to students who have completed TOX 888.3 and at least six other courses in the MRA program.