oEPA
United States
Environmental Protection
Agency
www.epa.gov/comptox

Chemical Toxicity Databases
(AS. EPA's PUBLICLY AVAILABLE
CHEMICAL TOXICITY DATABASES
Tens of thousands of chemicals
are currently in commerce, and
hundreds more are introduced every
year. Because current chemical
testing is expensive and time
consuming, only a small fraction
of chemicals have been assessed
adequately for potential risk.
The U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency is working to change the
current approach to chemical
toxicity risk assessment through its
Computational Toxicology Research
Program (CompTox). The program
uses innovative research that
integrates advances in molecular
biology, chemistry, and computer
science to more effectively and
efficiently rank chemicals based
on potential risks. Using CompTox
methods and tools, a large number
of chemicals can be screened for
risks at a small cost in a very short
amount of time.
CompTox has a package of
decision-support tools that provide
information about chemical risk,
hazard and exposure. Many of
these tools are publically available.
ACToR (Aggregated Computational
Toxicology Online Resource) is
EPA's online warehouse of all
publicly available chemical toxicity
data and can be used to find data
about potential chemical risks to
human health and the environment.
ACToR aggregates data from over
500 public sources on over 500,000
chemicals and is searchable by
chemical name, other identifiers and
by chemical structure. It can be used
to query a specific chemical and find
all available public hazard, exposure
and risk assessment data as well
as previously unpublished studies
related to cancer, reproductive and
developmental toxicity.
Too Many Chemicals
10000
1000
100
10
1
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
ACToR allows users to search
and query data from other EPA
chemical toxicity databases
including: ToxRefDB (30 years and
$2 billion worth of animal toxicity
studies), DSSTox (provides high
quality chemical structures and
annotations), ToxCastDB (data from
screening ToxCast chemicals in
over 500 high-throughput assays)
and coming soon ExpoCastDB
(will consolidate and link human
exposure and exposure factor data
for chemical prioritization).
ToxRefDB allows scientists and
the interested public to search and
download thousands of animal
toxicity testing results on hundreds
of chemicals that were previously
found only in paper documents.
ToxRefDB contains animal toxicity
information that when combined
with other sources of information,
such as exposure and metabolism,
form the basis for pesticide risk
assessments.
The DSSTox
database
provides a
public forum
for publishing
downloadable,
structure-searchable, standardized
chemical structure files associated
with toxicity data developed from
available structure-viewing freeware
and open-source programming
tools. It delivers a simple, easy-to-
use structure-searching capability
through the chemical inventory of
published DSSTox data files.
Using ToxCastDB, scientists
and others who are interested
can access data resulting from
another EPA chemical screening
tool called ToxCast™. ToxCast™
is a multi-year, multi-million dollar
effort that uses advanced science
tools to help efficiently understand
biological processes impacted by
chemicals that may lead to adverse
health effects.
ToxCast™ currently includes 500
fast, automated chemical screening
tests that are currently assessing
1,000 environmental chemicals.
ToxCastDB provides access to all
ToxCast data. Users can search
and download data for all ToxCast
chemicals, assays, genes, pathways
and endpoints. The database allows
for associations and biologically
driven data mining. It also provides
links to available animal data
through ToxRefDB.
9912
In
~	IRIS ¦ TRI	¦ Pesticides
~	Inerts ~ CCL 1 & 2 ~ HPV
¦ MPV
Too Little Data (%)
IB
~	Acute ¦ Cancer ¦ Gentox
~	DevTox DReproTox
Office of Research and Development

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Chemical Toxicity Databases
ACToR allows users to take
advantage of this linkage to find and
download these results.
Collaboration
Opportunities
The CompTox Research Program
partners and collaborates with
EPA regions and program
offices, industry, academia, trade
associations, other federal agencies,
state and local government agencies
and non-governmental organizations
with an interest in revolutionizing
the current approach to assessing
chemical toxicity risk to humans
and the environment. Collaboration
opportunities include a Communities
of Practice group and different
types of agreements that facilitate
the sharing of research data
and studies.
The CompTox program goal is to
provide fast, automated tests for
screening and assessing chemical
exposure, hazard and risk. Housed
within EPA's Office of Research
and Development, CompTox is
composed of three main elements.
The largest component is the
National Center for Computational
Toxicology (NCCT), which was
established in 2005 to coordinate
research on chemical screening
and prioritization, informatics and
systems modeling.
The second element consists of
research in EPA's National Health
and Environmental Effects Research
Laboratory (NHEERL) and National
Exposure Research Laboratory
(NERL). The final components are
the academic centers working on
various aspects of computational
toxicology funded by EPA's Science
to Achieve Results (STAR) program.
Other CompTox decision support
tools and research projects include
ExpoCast, Virtual Liver, Virtual
Embryo, ToxPi and Tox21.
For more information:
ToxRefDB:
http://actor.epa.gov/toxrefdb
ToxCastDB:
http://actor.epa.gov/actor/faces/
ToxMiner/Home.jsp
ExpoCastDB:
http://actor.epa.gov/actor/faces/
ExpoCast/Home.jsp
DSSTox:
http://epa.gov/ncct/dsstox/
Contact:
National Center for
Computational Toxicology
Robert Kavlock
Director
kavlock.robert@epa.gov
David Dix
Deputy Director
dix.david@epa.gov
Monica Linnenbrink
Public Affairs Specialist
linnenbrink.monica@epa.gov
Main Office: 919-541-4219
www.epa.gov/comptox
109 T.W. Alexander Drive (B-205-01)
Research Triangle Park, NC 27711
Recycled/Recyclable
Printed on paper that contains a minimum
of 50% postconsumer fiber content
processed chlorine free
Office of Research and Development

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