Fall 2019 Seminar Series (Pharm 847-S/ENV 847-S)
Duke University Program in Environmental Health & Toxicology
Friday, September 20, 2019, 11:45 am – 1:00 pm, LSRC Love Auditorium B101 (room change!)
ALISON HARRILL, PH.D.
NIH National Toxicology Program
Assessing chemical risks unique to genetically sensitive subpopulations using Diversity Outbred mice
Genetic sequence difference between individuals is known to play a large role in susceptibility to adverse effects of drugs and chemicals. However, toxicity testing is still most routinely conducted in small donor pools or in genetically identical animals (strains). In her talk, Dr. Harrill will provide an overview of animal and in vitro model systems that can quantitatively capture the breadth of responses that would naturally occur across populations. These data can impact risk estimates for human safety and can also enable determination of susceptibility modes of action in genetically sensitive responders.
Speaker Biography: Dr. Harrill is a Geneticist at NIEHS, where she develops and implements testing strategies that enable protection of individuals and subpopulations that are genetically sensitive to toxicant exposure. She received her doctorate in Toxicology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2008. Dr. Harrill is co-chair of the Health and Environmental Sciences Institute’s Emerging Systems Toxicology for Assessment of Risk (eSTAR) Committee and she serves on the OECD Developmental Neurotoxicity working group as an expert in genetic susceptibility. She is author/co-author of over 30 publications, including peer-reviewed articles and book chapters, and has won several awards for her research, including the Society of Toxicology Board of Publications Best Paper Award and the Burroughs Wellcome Fund Innovation in Regulatory Science Award. Dr. Harrill enjoys academic appointments within the School of Pharmacy at UNC-Chapel Hill and the Graduate School of the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences. She currently serves as an Associated Editor of the journal Toxicological Sciences.