Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics (mail code 7410M), United States Environmental Protection Agency, Washington, District of Columbia.
Toxicol Sci. 2018 Feb 1;161(2):225-240. doi: 10.1093/toxsci/kfx197.
During the past several decades, there has been an ever increasing emphasis for designers of new commercial (nonpharmaceutical) chemicals to include considerations of the potential impacts a planned chemical may have on human health and the environment as part of the design of the chemical, and to design chemicals such that they possess the desired use efficacy while minimizing threats to human health and the environment. Achievement of this goal would be facilitated by the availability of individuals specifically and formally trained to design such chemicals. Medicinal chemists are specifically trained to design and develop safe and clinically efficacious pharmaceutical substances. No such formally trained science hybrid exists for the design of safer commercial (nonpharmaceutical) chemicals. This article describes the need for and role of the "toxicological chemist," an individual who is formally trained in synthetic organic chemistry, biochemistry, physiology, toxicology, environmental science, and in the relationships between structure and commercial use efficacy, structure and toxicity, structure and environmental fate and effects, and global hazard, and trained to integrate this knowledge to design safer commercially efficacious chemicals. Using examples, this article illustrates the role of the toxicological chemist in designing commercially efficacious, safer chemical candidates.
在过去几十年中，新的商业（非医药）化学品的设计者越来越强调要将计划中的化学品对人类健康和环境的潜在影响考虑在内，作为化学品设计的一部分，并设计出具有所需使用功效的化学品，同时最大限度地减少对人类健康和环境的威胁。如果有专门受过培训的人员来设计此类化学品，那么实现这一目标将更加容易。药物化学家专门接受设计和开发安全且临床有效的药物物质的培训。对于设计更安全的商业（非医药）化学品，目前还没有这样经过正式培训的科学混合体。本文描述了“毒理化学家”的需求和作用，毒理化学家受过合成有机化学、生物化学、生理学、毒理学、环境科学以及结构与商业用途功效、结构与毒性、结构与环境命运和影响、全球危害之间关系的正式培训，并接受过设计更安全、更有效的商业化学品的培训。本文通过示例说明了毒理化学家在设计商业上有效、更安全的化学候选物方面的作用。
