CGET 616 Environmental Immunotoxicology and Reproductive Toxicology (2 credits)
Prerequisite: CGET501 Integrated Life Sciences or equivalent
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Course Description :
The Environmental Immunotoxicology and Reproductive
Toxicology course is broken down into two parts. The first part is an introduction to
the science of Immunotoxicology. There will be a general lecture on blood cells and the
mammalian immune system, including detailed description of all three arms of the immune
response (i.e. non-specific, cell-mediated, and humoral-mediated responses). There will
also be descriptions of how toxic chemicals (in general) can impact normal immune system
homeostasis (both systemic and pulmonary) to result in adverse health outcomes such as
hypersensitivity, autoimmunity and immuno-suppression. Specific cellular/functional
methodologies for determining the potential immunotoxicity of a given chemical will also
be discussed. Particular environmental/occupational chemicals such as PAHs, air pollutants,
and metals will be used as examples in both mammalian and non-mammalian species. Finally,
Immunotoxicology as it relates to other scientific fields such as drug development and risk
assessment will be covered.
The second part of the Environmental Immunotoxicology and Reproductive
Toxicology course is an introduction to the area of Reproductive Toxicology and the
new technologies that have been developed to study it. An introduction will be given
on hormonally active agents and their mechanisms of action using estrogen receptor-mediated
responses as a model. A few representative compounds that are found widely in the
environment will be discussed as well as experiments that have been developed to
decipher their mechanisms of action. Exposures, persistence and monitoring for these
compounds will be covered. Routes of exposure, bioaccumulation, distribution and
metabolism will be accentuated. Effects on reproduction and development in laboratory
animal studies, human studies, and wildlife studies will also be covered. Finally,
methods for studying changes in gene expression, both at the mRNA level and the protein
levels, will be introduced and discussed.
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