Curriculum Map for PhD Students

This course covers the general principles of toxicology including xenobiotic dose response relationships, absorption, distribution, elimination, metabolism, excretion, and pharmacokinetic modeling. The course then focuses on the molecular and biochemical basis of toxicant action, first at the cellular level involving cell injury, necrotic cell death, regulated cell death and pathology and then at the organ level involving acute toxicity in the kidney, lung and liver. The course also covers endocrine disruption, mutagenesis, DNA repair and chronic toxicity involving carcinogenesis and the importance of critical windows of exposure.

This course covers the biochemical, molecular and cellular mechanisms through which xenobiotics disrupt development and the cardiovascular, immune, nervous, dermal and reproductive systems to produce toxicity and adverse outcomes at the organ/organism level. The course covers emerging contaminants, the role of genetics and epigenetics in individual susceptibility to xenobiotics and the use of “omics’ approaches to study the underlying mechanisms of toxicity. Software packages for omics analysis and databases to advance our understanding of mechanisms will be introduced. Principles of epidemiology and community engagement will be discussed and specialized areas of toxicology including regulatory and industrial toxicology and human health risk assessment will be highlighted.

Evaluation of fundamental processes relating fate and effects of chemicals in the environment. Emphasis on effects of pollutants on non-human species, environmental risk assessment and historically relevant incidents of environmental contaminants.

A discussion of the structure and function of genetic material at a molecular level. Consideration of both prokaryotic and eukaryotic systems. The aim to describe genetics in terms of chemical principles.

Basic concepts of statistical models and use of samples; variation, statistical measures, distributions, tests of significance, analysis of variance and elementary experimental design, regression and correlation, chi-square.

Advanced cell and organelle structure and function and recent advances in molecular biology. Emphasis on current literature and application of research procedures.

Lab rotations for first semester graduate students

Instruction in research and research under the mentorship of a member of the Graduate Faculty.

Dissertation research.

For graduate students whose programs of work specify no formal course work during a summer session and who will be devoting full time to thesis research.