Calabrese, Edward J2024-04-262024-04-262011-11-19https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14394/8263<p>Edward J. Calabrese is a Professor of Toxicology at the University of Massachusetts Amherst School of Public Health. He has carried out research in the area of host factors affecting susceptibility to pollutants, and is the author of over 600 papers and more than 10 books, including <em>Principals of Animal Extrapolation; Ecogenetics; Air Toxins and Risk Assessmen, </em>and<em> Biological Effects of Low Level Exposures to Chemicals and Radiation. </em>Dr. Calabrese is Chairman of the Biological Effects of Low Level Exposures (BELLE) and is Director of the Northeast Regional Environmental Public Health Center, and has served on National Academy of Sciences committees. Over the past 15 years he has sought to understand the response in the low dose zone and the underlying adaptive mechanisms. This has indicated that the most fundamental dose response in toxicology and pharmacology is the hormetic-biphasic dose response relationship, leading to a major transformation in improving drug discovery, development, and the efficiency of clinical trials, as well as in improving environmental regulations.</p>This presentation provides an assessment of hormesis, a dose-response concept that is characterized by a low-dose stimulation and a high-dose inhibition. It will trace the historical foundations of hormesis, its quantitative features and mechanistic foundations, and its risk assessment implications. It will be argued that the hormetic dose response is the most fundamental dose response, significantly outcompeting other leading dose-response models in large-scale, head-to-head evaluations used by regulatory agencies such as the EPA and FDA. The hormetic dose response is highly generalizable, being independent of biological model, endpoint measured, chemical class, physical agent (e.g., radiation) and inter-individual variability. Hormesis also provides a framework for the study and assessment of chemical mixtures, incorporating the concept of additivity and synergism. Because the hormetic biphasic dose response represents a general pattern of biological responsiveness, it is expected that it will become progressively more significant within toxicological evaluation and chemical and radiation risk assessment practices as well as having numerous biomedical applications. Particular application will be directed towards how hormesis may affect the risk assessment process for chemicals and ionizing radiation.NuclearPhysicsevent