• Exposure to Endocrine Disrupting Compounds

Given that endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs) include a wide range of chemicals that are present in indoor environments, there is a need to study human exposure to these compounds and to assess their health impacts, especially for young children. For this reason, we are developing an improved modeling framework to help health professionals estimate screening-level exposures to EDCs and conduct risk-based prioritization for chemicals of concern. In addition, we will also conduct large-scale chamber studies with infant robot thermal manikin to characterize children’s exposure to EDCs via different pathways.

• Risk-Based Chemical Prioritization

The production of manmade chemicals added to various consumer products is ever increasing in terms of both quantity and diversity. Humans are inevitably exposed to these chemicals by daily use of consumer products, which may result in adverse health effects and disease costs. Therefore, it is important to conduct chemical prioritization based on exposure and toxicity information and develop regulation policies. Health risks can be characterized by several classic indicators such as hazard quotient, cancer risk, and disability adjusted life years, DALYs, etc.

• Linking Exposure to Health

Chemical toxicity testing is moving steadily toward in vitro-in silico based approach. We are developing modeling frameworks that integrate exposure and pharmacokinetic models to achieve seamless translation from product concentration to body burden and thus allow us to evaluate population-scale health risks. The integrated modeling framework has significant advantages in mapping chemical concentrations in consumer products to multi-route risks, and thus is of great significance for regulatory use with a relatively low input requirement.