Question: Which is the main goal of toxicology? What does it investigate?

Lauren Laing answered on 14 Mar 2016:

As Richard says, toxicology is basically the study of the effects of chemical substances. These chemicals might include pharmaceutical medicines, pesticides, industrial chemicals, oils and fuels or components of plastics. Chemicals may affect the environment, humans or animals. Usually, toxicologists focus on the negative effects that these chemicals may have, and try to come to conclusions which will help decision makers in parliament to decide if a chemical should be banned, better managed or even encouraged in use due to its safe properties.

For me, toxicology means understanding how chemicals may be toxic to fish in the wild, including how these chemicals may affect the way genes are expressed and regulated. I enjoy working on fish because I think they are really important. They provide an important food source for millions of people, and are at significant risk from stress or toxicity caused by exposure to chemicals such as pesticides used in farming, industrial chemicals, pharmaceuticals and plasticizers. These chemicals make it into the rivers via industrial waste pipes, rain water runoff from farms, water leeched from land fill sites, and from treated sewage water let out into the river systems. The important thing to remember, is fish are exposed to these chemicals in combination! And on top of this they experience other stress such as over fishing and the effects of climate change. Fish are also exciting because species such as the Zebrafish share as many as 85% of their genes with humans! This means we can also learn about how these chemicals could affect humans if they are found in our food or drinking water sources, so that we can help protect humans too.

I hope that the work my colleagues and I do to try and understand chemicals toxicity will help decision makers in parliament to make new policies which will regulate chemicals. It is important that chemicals which can cause harm are regulated, but also that chemicals which are safe alternatives are made available for farmers and industries such as the pharmaceutical industry. This is because we cannot live without some chemicals, like important medicines, and fertilizers used to make sure we can produce enough food to eat!