Human Health Risk Assessment
The Risk Assessment Core (“Core”) at the University of Florida holds the singular contract with the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (FDEP) to provide technical support for risk assessments in the State of Florida. Since 1995, the Core has produced over 1,000 technical reviews of risk assessments. The Core advises the FDEP, Miami-Dade County, and the Florida Department of Health on all aspects of risk assessment and has created exposure models for both human and ecological health utilized in Florida and in other states. The Core derived soil, groundwater, and surface water screening levels protective of human and ecological health for almost 700 different chemicals that are promulgated by rule and used to guide the cleanup of contaminated sites. The purpose of the Core is to continue advancing the science of regulatory risk assessment and risk assessment education at the University of Florida. Services offered by the Core include risk assessment reviews, derivation of media-specific and site-specific cleanup levels, derivation of non-cancer toxicity values, probabilistic modeling of exposure, probabilistic risk assessments, and developing exposure models for alternative scenarios (such as irrigation and senior residential communities).
Ecological Risk Assessment
The Risk Assessment Core at the University of Florida serves as the Florida Department of Environmental Protection’s (FDEP’s) technical reviewer for the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Program (CERP) lead by the South Florida Water Management District. The CERP program is a joint state and federal program dedicated to the restoration of the South Florida ecosystem and historic water flow. After inundation, previous agricultural land is likely to be inhabited by threatened and endangered species unique to the Everglades. These lands must be assessed and remediated to protect wildlife from pesticides that were applied during cultivation. In addition to reviewing assessments, the Core authored the State of Florida Ecological Risk Assessment Guidance recommending approaches specific to Florida. The objective of the Core is to assist in protecting Florida’s unique ecosystems and wildlife. Services offered by the Core include ecological risk assessment reviews, species sensitivity distributions, derivation of mammalian and avian toxicity values, derivation of surface water and sediment criteria, and probabilistic ecological risk assessment.
PK and PBPK Modeling
The Risk Assessment Core provides the following PK and PBPK analyses, including (1) Non-compartmental pharmacokinetic analysis; (2) Compartmental pharmacokinetic modeling; (3) Population pharmacokinetic analysis using nonlinear mixed effects (NLME) modeling; (4) Physiologically based pharmacokinetic (PBPK) modeling; (5) Population physiologically based pharmacokinetic modeling using Monte Carlo simulations; (6) Bayesian population physiologically based pharmacokinetic modeling using Markov chain Monte Carlo simulations; (7) Pharmacokinetic-pharmacodynamic (PK/PD) modeling; and (8) Physiologically based pharmacokinetic-pharmacodynamic (PBPK/PD) modeling.