The Big Picture of Small Things: Nanotoxicology

Nanoparticles are manmade fibers, particulates, and other objects that are so small that when inhaled, they can escape the lungs and enter other body systems. Timothy Nurkiewicz, West Virginia University, studies the effects of these and other particulars. He discusses his inhalation and nanotoxicology research, as well as work with the National Guard on developing facemasks to protect against airborne diseases, with co-hosts Anne Chappelle and David Faulkner.

About the Guest
Timothy R. Nurkiewicz, PhD, is the E.J. Van Liere Medicine Professor and Chair of the Department of Physiology and Pharmacology at the West Virginia University (WVU) School of Medicine. He is also the Director of the WVU Inhalation Facilities and Center for Inhalation Toxicology (iTOX) and has been a guest researcher with the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health since 2008.

Dr. Nurkiewicz’s research is in the fields of microvascular physiology and toxicology, with specific focus on pulmonary exposure to particulate matter and engineered nanomaterials. His research program pioneered novel investigations in the field of maternal nanomaterial exposures and fetal microvascular ramifications. Through iTOX, his lab and team are able to replicate the atmospheres that humans are exposed to in order to advance understanding of their acute and chronic toxicities.

Dr. Nurkiewicz earned a BS in exercise and sport science from Pennsylvania State University, a MS in exercise physiology from WVU, and a PhD in physiology from WVU. He completed postdocs at Texas A&M University and WVU. Currently, Dr. Nurkiewicz serves as an Associate Editor for Frontiers—Vascular Physiology and Particle and Fibre Toxicology and is a founding member and Past President of the SOT Cardiovascular Toxicology Specialty Section.

Transcript

[00:00:00] Adverse Reactions “Decompose” Theme Music

[00:00:05] David Faulkner: Hello and welcome to Adverse Reactions.

[00:00:08] Anne Chappelle: This season, our theme is intersections, where we see toxicology intersect with another science.

[00:00:15] David Faulkner: Well, a lot of other sciences.

No person is an island, and no discipline has all the answers. But when scientific fields collide, some really interesting things happen. I’m David Faulkner,

[00:00:27] Anne Chappelle: and I’m Anne Chapelle. 

[00:00:28] David Faulkner: Welcome to Adverse Reactions Season 3: Intersections.

[00:00:32] Adverse Reactions “Decompose” Theme Music

[00:00:39] Thanks for joining us for today’s episode, “The Big Picture of Small Things: Nanotoxicology.”

[00:00:45] Tim Nurkiewicz: There’s a long history in nanotoxicology of identifying these health effects because of what you just said, that they’re winding up in places that their larger counterparts can’t go. Then, when you layer on top of that, in nanotechnology, sometimes we have the intentional introduction of nanomaterials to the body. 

[00:01:05] Adverse Reactions “Decompose” Theme Music

[00:01:11] Anne Chappelle: I’d like to welcome to the podcast today Dr. Tim Nurkiewicz, who is a professor at West Virginia University. 

[00:01:20] Tim Nurkiewicz: Thank you. Thank you very much.

[00:01:22] Anne Chappelle: What kinds of things do you do, and how would you explain it if you were sitting next to my mom at a grocery store? 

[00:01:29] Tim Nurkiewicz: If you want the whole enchilada, I’m also the Chair of the Department of Physiology and Pharmacology and the Director of the Center for Inhalation Toxicology, both of those entities reside in the School of Medicine. The research program that I head up is focused around inhalation toxicology. Generally speaking, we are interested in how things that are floating around in the air get into our lungs and sometimes into our body and how that causes adverse health effects both acutely and chronically. The health effects that I’m interested in are cardiovascular function or microvascular function specifically, reproductive outcomes.

In my research center, we refer to as iTOX or the Center for Inhalation Toxicology, we have investigators that are also interested in not just reproductive outcomes but endocrine outcomes and generational impacts. How does a maternal exposure when you’re pregnant impact your offspring? And not just your offspring, but how many generations down the line does that health impairment carry out because of an exposure during pregnancy? 

[00:02:43] David Faulkner: Interesting. So, what is microvascular? I think I can guess what it is, but—

[00:02:47] Tim Nurkiewicz: To my bias, I would say the microcirculation is the most important tissue in the body. 

[00:02:53] David Faulkner: Strong words. 

[00:02:54] Tim Nurkiewicz: Yeah. It’s the business end of the cardiovascular system. It’s comprised of arterials, capillaries, and venules, and the arterials are responsible for generating resistance that protects the capillaries from the high pressures that the heart has to generate to deliver blood to our entire body. And then, the capillaries are where we exchange our nutrients in wastes—oxygen and carbon dioxide—essentially, but a bunch of other things. In class, I always refer to those two because that’s where the students get right away. And then, the venules are where we have our host response to immune functions.

So, when we get sick or things invade our body, that’s where our white cells tend to interact with the vasculature, and they are able to migrate out of the venules and then attack the sites that are infected. The lymphatics are also considered part of that system, and the lymphatics are responsible for returning excess fluids that are built from the capillaries. And they’re also involved in the host response. That’s where we have a lot of white cells that reside in lymph nodes in our neck and our armpit and groins. 

[00:04:03] Anne Chappelle: So, thinking that the inhalation of normal air could have developmental effects on my baby—20 years ago when I had a baby—I’d like for you to talk a little bit about that because I’m a little shocked.

[00:04:17] Tim Nurkiewicz: The general hypothesis is referred to as the developmental origins of health and disease. The lay definition is what you grow up in—the environment that you develop in during gestation—sets the path for your future health, not just in early life, but throughout your life. It may predispose you to certain diseases.

The premise of it goes back to inhalation toxicology that if you are exposed to something, there are multiple hypotheses for how that gets an extra pulmonary effect. The first one is the inflammatory hypothesis. In that case, you have a pulmonary insult in a response, and then, the chemical messengers begin to spill out from the lung, or a message is broadcast from the lung that winds up in the blood, and therefore, it can move to the uterus and influence uterine development during pregnancy.

The second avenue would be a neural activation. The lung, you know, is ripe with receptors that are linked back to our brain, and then, that has output going to the rest of the body. And the uterine microcirculation is no exception. So, if you alter neural output to microvascular beds, you change the caliber of the blood vessels. So instead of them being very large and blood is able to flow through them, they constrict and that limits blood flow to the developing fetus. So, another mechanism through which an inhaled particle is impacting fetal outcomes.

[00:05:53] Anne Chappelle: So, these are secondary type effects?

[00:05:56] Tim Nurkiewicz: Yep.

[00:05:57] Anne Chappelle: That’s where I was getting a little confused because in my years of in the chemical industry, I think of, “Oh, I inhaled some coal dust,” and maybe some of those particles get into the fetus. But this is really a secondary, this is more subtle.

[00:06:11] Tim Nurkiewicz: It’s absolutely a consequence. In our studies, if we exposed animals and there wasn’t a response in the lung, I’d be worried we did something wrong because we’re supposed to have that defense mechanism in our lungs. It’s normal. 

[00:06:25] Anne Chappelle: It’s not an adverse reaction.

[00:06:27] Tim Nurkiewicz: Right, right. 

When we reach that tipping point with the exposure that that reaction starts to impact pulmonary function and those are the type of insults that are more acutely debilitating or toxic to the lung. And in that case, we’re talking about things like gas exposures, like chlorine gas or other weapons, that we see, unfortunately, in today’s day and age. But the more subtle effects are hinged on things like air pollution emissions from vehicles and power plants and things of that nature.

Nowadays, vaping is the big concern because there is still the notion that exists from many people that e-cigarette use is a safer alternative to traditional cigarettes. That notion is making it to pregnant women, who then vape during their pregnancy. There’s a whole world of research that is blooming right now in the tox field because we have both firsthand and secondhand exposures to vape clouds. 

[00:07:31] David Faulkner: So, when I think of nanoparticles, I have a very specific idea in mind, but I feel like the term nano just kinda gets thrown around. Like, I have an iPod nano, so.

[00:07:40] Anne Chappelle: You’re old school. 

[00:07:41] David Faulkner: Yeah. I know.

[00:07:42] Anne Chappelle: That’s not modern.

[00:07:43] David Faulkner: It’s a throwback.

[00:07:45] Anne Chappelle: It is a way throwback.

[00:07:46] David Faulkner: So, when you were talking about nanoparticles, what are you talking about more specifically?

[00:07:52] Tim Nurkiewicz: I need to define particulate matter first to define nanoparticles, and there are three flavors of particulate matter. The course fraction is referred to as PM10, and that 10 moniker means that the average size in a sample is 10 micrometers or smaller. And that 10 micrometers is significant because that represents the threshold at which we’re able to inhale particles of that size. Bigger stuff we aren’t capable of inhaling, and so that’s why that cutoff exists. 

[00:08:26] David Faulkner: Could you give an example of what kind of particle do we think about?

[00:08:29] Tim Nurkiewicz: At 10 micrometers, you’re looking at agglomerates of pollen. You’re looking at a lot of large carbonaceous emissions coming from like diesel exhaust—old-school diesel exhaust. The new stuff is much smaller, and we’ll get there in a second. But things from mining operations—sand, grains, things in that range—are at 10 micrometers.

The next fraction is the fine fraction, and that is PM2.5, and the 2.5 micrometers represents the point at which not only are you able to inhale the particle, but you’re able to inhale it deeply down into the terminal lung, into the bronchi and the alveoli, which are the business-end of the lung. That’s where gas exchange is occurring, so you don’t want particles down there—but yet, they’re getting there. So, we’re concerned about that. And at two-and-a-half micrometers, you’re down at the cellular level and smaller. 

And then, the next point of interest is PM0.1, and that’s ultrafine particles, and 0.1 is 0.1 micrometers or 100 nanometers. It’s important to have that distinction because not only are the particles capable of making it down to the alveoli, they can get out of the lung; they can get between cells. They can get in places where PM2.5 cannot go. 

Your question about what is a nanoparticle? A nanoparticle is intentionally made by humans. They’re referred to as anthropogenic. They were made with a purpose in a laboratory. Somebody had an idea to make a particle that reflects light a certain way. It may have different solubilities. It may have the ability to drive certain types of chemistry. And so, there was an idea before a creation with nanoparticles. They share with ultrafine particulate matter that same cutoff; at least one dimension of the particle has to be 100 nanometers or less, and so, they’re capable of getting everywhere that an ultrafine particle can. And because they have very different chemical characteristics, physicochemical characteristics, they’re able to migrate out of the lung also. 

[00:10:43] David Faulkner: Two quick follow ups: where would something like asbestos fit into this scheme, and then also, you mentioned that only one dimension has to be smaller than a hundred nanometers—can you elaborate on that? What does that mean exactly?

[00:10:56] Tim Nurkiewicz: Your question with asbestos is spot on. There is an aspect ratio of fibers like asbestos that if you look at the cross-section diameter, some of them are down in that nano range, but then, if you look at the length of the fiber, it’s micrometers. It’s very long. These are the ways that we describe particles, by that aspect ratio. Not all nanomaterials are fibers. Some of them are actual just particles. They aren’t perfect spheres, but they do have a rounded shape. As opposed to like particulate matter, things like freshly fractured silica, it has jagged edges. Some people hypothesize that’s what contributes to silicosis in miners. That those jagged edges are what is part of the initial insult.

[00:11:42] Anne Chappelle: The way that I’ve also thought of nano was that it’s small enough that the little particles don’t do the same thing as the big ones. They have maybe different phys-chem parameters. When you start thinking about nanomaterials, you have to throw away your typical physiology and maybe some of the standard tests that you might do because that doesn’t really apply in the same way if you’re really looking at nanoparticles because they can get farther. Their effects could be unpredictable by traditional chemical toxicology endpoints that we look at. 

[00:12:16] Tim Nurkiewicz: Yeah, absolutely. There’s a long history in nanotoxicology of identifying these health effects because of what you just said, that they’re winding up in places that their larger counterparts can’t go. Then, when you layer on top of that, that in nanotechnology sometimes we have the intentional introduction of nanomaterials to the body. These are sometimes in the forms of biomedical devices, artificial joints, things that are breaking down over time and releasing these things. But we intentionally put them in our body. 

I would say historically it’s important to keep in mind that when the field of nanotoxicology was originally coined or came about, it was on the notion that nanomaterials would display a different toxicity than their larger counterparts.  And over the years, what we’ve been observing is not a different or a novel toxicity, but rather, we’ve shifted the dose-response curve because if you consider for inhalation—really specifically for inhalation—we in the field struggle a lot with what is the proper dose metric for exposures. Is it the mass deposited in the lung? Is it the number of nanoparticles that are deposited? Is it the surface area? And the analogy I always like to use with students: if you could imagine a 55-gallon drum, how many basketballs would that drum hold versus how many ping pong balls would it hold, and which one has a greater surface area? The ping pong balls do. So, that’s a way to discuss it. We have seen that nanomaterial exposures do shift the dose-response curve, and we are seeing toxicity or biologic effects to these materials as compared to their larger counterparts because we either can’t inhale them or they don’t get into the lung in the same areas as their smaller counterparts.

[00:14:08] David Faulkner: So, then, when we’re thinking about testing these things, do we have to do different tests? I guess I’m just thinking about the usual types of assays that I would use: you know, with any chemicals that just spritz them onto some cells and see what happens. Does that work, or do we have to do things a little bit differently cuz we’re dealing with different sizes, different scales?

[00:14:26] Tim Nurkiewicz: There has been a lot of work done on tier-based testing of nanomaterials that begins with in silico or computer models. Those are fairly developed computer models, and many times, they are tailored to the specific, known physicochemical characteristics of a given material. From those models, if toxicity or potential toxicity is determined, then, the next level is to move to a cellular model or an organoid model in which you can really constrain the exposure, the interaction of the nanomaterial with a target tissue. Usually, epithelial cells are the ones that everybody’s interested in because that’s where they get deposited whenever we inhale them. If toxicity persists there or we continue to identify effects, then, you’ve justified moving to an animal model to demonstrate that in a relevant system that you have an effect either contained entirely in the lung or there is some extra pulmonary or systemic targeting that results from the exposure.

[00:15:31] David Faulkner: With this in mind, talking about the physical relationships, I guess with toxicology I tend to think of it as just chemistry. This substance interacts with this area or this thing, and then, this happens. Within the nano realm, and especially thinking in terms of respiratory exposures, it also seems really important about the physicality. The spatial qualities of the particle are really important, and it seems like by having something physically present in a place that it shouldn’t be, you can create toxicity. And I was wondering if you could talk a little bit more about that?

[00:16:03] Tim Nurkiewicz: To your first point about the physicality of it, the field of inhalation toxicology has a lot of engineers in it and a lot of modelers—and I am neither of those. I’ve been very fortunate to work with many of them over the years. I guess I should disclose I was originally trained as a microvascular physiologist, so I’m not even a lung guy. But one of my early mentors taught me that you can’t know everything, so that’s why you surround yourself with the people that do. Aerosol engineers in specific are a very unique breed of scientists because they blend a lot of physics with biology. Do we consider the density of these particles? Laminar flow versus turbulent flow? These are all variables that these guys, they’re thinking of constantly. That’s what they tap into to develop their models of toxicity, and there’s a lot of prominent models out there that have been the product of many years of research by aerosol engineers.

[00:17:01] Anne Chappelle: I will say that it is an art to get a mono-dispersed atmosphere of something that doesn’t want to get into the air into the air. That it really is an incredible art. 

[00:17:14] Tim Nurkiewicz: It is. Not only to get it into the air, but to keep it in the air. 

[00:17:18] Anne Chappelle: Yes. You’re in Morgantown, right? 

[00:17:21] Tim Nurkiewicz: Mm-hmm.

[00:17:21] Anne Chappelle: NIOSH has a research facility there. Do you collaborate much with the NIOSH people? 

[00:17:27] Tim Nurkiewicz: Yeah. Do you want me to give you a brief background on how I got here cuz it’s their fault?

[00:17:33] Anne Chappelle: David would love that. 

[00:17:36] David Faulkner: I would love that, yeah.

[00:17:36] Tim Nurkiewicz: So, I earned my PhD here in the Department of Physiology. At the time, Texas A&M was the mecca for microvascular research, and so, I went there. After a couple of years, we had our second child, and our parents were equidistant on either side of the country. I decided to come back to WVU because my mentor was creating a cardiovascular center. So, not only did I come back to the university where I got my PhD, but I came back to the department and the lab—at which point everybody quickly stated that I just committed academic suicide and that I had get out from under my mentor’s shadow if I was going to have a career. 

Total luck, I was walking around the hallway one day, and I saw one of my former teachers when I was in physiology. His name was Vince Castranova. At the time he was the Branch Chief of the Pathology and Physiology Research Branch at NIOSH, which is next door to us. So, he took me in. The great folks at NIOSH over the years, they’re the ones that taught me toxicology, got me into SOT, and over the years, we’ve been constantly collaborating. And it’s been a wonderful trip. So, yeah, I know NIOSH well. 

[00:18:57] Anne Chappelle: Do you think that it was important for you to leave and see the world outside of WVU?

[00:19:03] Tim Nurkiewicz: Oh, absolutely. I would not have learned all the microvascular techniques in my lab that I have today or received the training to continue to advance that field and create novel microvascular tools. That wouldn’t have happened. If I hadn’t of come back, I wouldn’t have had the fire lit under my butt to add some unique component that clearly separated me from my mentor. So, it was all a series of good unplanned events.

[00:19:34] David Faulkner: Happy accidents. 

My understanding is there is a lot of mining in West Virginia. You’ve alluded to this several times. Do you have any projects or collaborations going on with any of the mining facilities or anything else like environmental health–type stuff in your area?

[00:19:48] Tim Nurkiewicz: We’ve had several projects over the years leading up to what we’re doing now, and I’ll end with that one. Historically, West Virginia has been a mining state—traditional coal mining. Just that industry itself brings a lot of air pollution because of the heavy concentration of equipment. The practice that West Virginia became notorious for—we didn’t invent it, but it’s used a lot here—is called mountaintop mining, and instead of traditional mining where you bore down through tunnels and have labyrinths under the earth, that takes time and money. It’s much faster and cheaper to blow the top off a mountain and dig straight down. That footprint slowly expands over the years. While you might have started an operation many miles away from a city, as the mining expands, it encroaches on the city, or it puts its air pollution in a path that exposes the people there. So, that’s mountaintop mining. 

And we did some studies several years ago that were derivative of colleagues in our School of Public Health in which they were sampling the air coming from these mountaintop mining sites. They brought it back to us, and we exposed animals and did our battery of experiments and identified health effects resulting from mountaintop mining emissions. 

After that time period, I’m sure everybody’s familiar with the boom of fracking or hydraulic fracturing, which you bring an engine or some very large power source to a well, and you pump fracking fluids down in to drive the natural gas up. When we talk about the energy sources for this, it could be very diverse. I’ve seen everything from locomotive engines to massing of traditional diesel engines to even a jet engine. The statement I like to say when we describe fracking platforms is, “If you’ve seen one fracking platform, you’ve seen exactly one fracking platform.” They’re all different. Once more, our colleagues in the School of Public Health are assisting in sampling the air or characterizing the emissions coming off and then collecting those emissions to bring back to the lab. 

[00:22:01] Anne Chappelle: Are you real popular at coal mining parties? It’s gotta be somewhat, not adversarial. I mean, you’re doing good research and such, but the impact—because you’re doing such subtle changes—is part of the response like, “Well, yeah, he’s just looking at these really subtle changes. Let’s focus on the big stuff. Let’s prevent lung cancer. We can worry about that other stuff when we get this highe- tier stuff out of the way.”

[00:22:27] Tim Nurkiewicz: First, I’ve never been invited to a coal mining party—or a fracking party for that matter. 

[00:22:32] David Faulkner: You’re missing out my friend. 

[00:22:32] David Faulknerand Anne Chappelle: Let me tell you. 

[00:22:35] Tim Nurkiewicz: I absolutely acknowledge that things like cancer is a much bigger immediate problem, but that doesn’t diminish the fact that so many people are being exposed to emissions around the world. We didn’t invent this, and it certainly isn’t contained to West Virginia. But the impact that it’s having on people in West Virginia, we are not a very healthy state. We are number one or number two when it comes to things like obesity and smoking, diabetes and hypertension. You combine that with things like low socioeconomic status and food deserts, and then, you add air pollution exposure on top of it. There’s a really significant public health problem there. Again, it’s not contained to West Virginia. It’s all across Appalachia that we have this problem. So, I think it’s important that we consider these types of air pollution exposures.

[00:23:33] David Faulkner: Switching gears a little bit, I saw that you’ve done a little bit of work looking at masks and nanoparticles, and I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about that cuz I think that’s fascinating.

[00:23:42] Anne Chappelle: How hard is it to get a mouse to wear a mask? 

[00:23:47] David Faulkner: I imagine they’re very small, but they only have to fit over the nose. 

[00:23:49] Tim Nurkiewicz: It’s harder than a rat. 

[00:23:51] Anne Chappelle: OK, that’s what I figured. 

[00:23:53] Tim Nurkiewicz: This is a COVID story. Like everybody else across the country, by about March of 2020, we were shut down, and the other thing that everybody’s aware of was the shortage of PPE. What drug us into the response was iTOX was in the news and on the radar of folks across the state—and namely the National Guard. The National Guard was called out for public response in West Virginia in a variety of ways, and in the beginning, they had no PPE. It was all going to the hospitals, like everybody else was doing to take care of everyone. People were aware of all the work that we did with particles, and the characterization of them. Really, that’s just a filtration issue. We’re really good at catching them. I presume that’s how the administration saw that we would be fit to deal with this. So, the early days, our task was to identify novel materials to be used for face masks for the National Guard that was interacting with the community. And they weren’t just dealing with COVID. Rather, it’s the fallout of it. We had interruptions in supply chains. There were places that weren’t getting food or medicine or water, and the Guard led that response to keep people healthy. They needed protection. So, they came to us and asked if we could test materials with them, and we said, “Sure.” We were back in the lab not two weeks later. 

It was one of the most memorable times in my life working with the Guard because these guys, they are hardcore and all business. Once they’re given an order, they go the whole nine yards. Very professional, every one of ’em. I can’t thank them enough. 

But they’re bringing us new materials every day from across the state—and there was no shortage of it. I mean, they were bringing us everything that the military had: parachutes—if you can think it, they brought it here. It was really overwhelming. We couldn’t test it fast enough. 

Like I said, our first task was to identify something that they could wear akin to a surgical mask. What we came up with was a three-layer mask that was GORE-TEX on the outside—a lot of their uniforms and jackets and suits and so forth have a GORE-TEX outer layer—with some sort of a filtration slipped into the middle, and then cotton closest to the face for comfort. That performed as well or better than a surgical mask, which is not hard to do because surgical masks, they’ve got a lot of space between them and so forth. But for protection and containment, that’s what we were just learning: that containment of your exhaled air is just as important as protection from the stuff that’s coming at you. The other thing that we did with the Guard on the side was develop what we called the West Virginia mask, which is a 3D printed mask that has cartridges on the side that you can insert whatever materials that you want.

[00:26:37] Anne Chappelle: It was the West Virginia mask? Not the Nurk mask?

[00:26:40] Tim Nurkiewicz: No. 

[00:26:41] Anne Chappelle: Cuz I would’ve sworn it should have been probably the Nurk Lab mask, you know?

[00:26:46] Tim Nurkiewicz: I got my name on enough stuff.

So, that was really huge because those could be printed, and the cartridges could be swapped out easily. You can decontaminate the masks, and it doesn’t impair or destroy or degrade the effectiveness of the mask. Folks were real happy with that one. 

[00:27:04] Anne Chappelle: That must have been a really incredible feeling to be able to be on that frontline. That we’re gonna just pull all these resources together. We’re gonna get it done. We’re gonna jump through hoops. Nobody’s gonna stop us. 

[00:27:18] Tim Nurkiewicz: Oh, yeah. 

[00:27:19] David Faulkner: We’re getting close to on time, and so, there’s a couple of questions that we like to ask everybody.

[00:27:24] Anne Chappelle: If you weren’t where you are now, doing what you’re doing, what would be your other career choice?

[00:27:29] Tim Nurkiewicz: I don’t know. I started out working on my EdD, and I almost quit because my mentor was bad. So, I was very fortunate that I wound up with my mentor that I was referring to earlier. That kept me in the field, but at the time, I said I was either gonna become a river guide or sell Amway. I’ve been in academia my whole life, so I’ve honestly never seriously considered it. I don’t think that I’m fit for outside of academia. I don’t take orders well. I follow my own schedule. 

[00:27:58] Anne Chappelle: But you put in your time, too. It’s not like you maybe did that the whole time. 

[00:28:02] David Faulkner: That’s fair. 

[00:28:02] Tim Nurkiewicz: Absolutely. 

[00:28:04] Anne Chappelle: Well, thank you so much, Tim, for spending today with us and helping us to see the small things and the big things in the whole picture.

[00:28:14] David Faulkner: The big picture for the small things.

[00:28:18] Tim Nurkiewicz: It was my pleasure. I’ve enjoyed chatting with you folks very much.

[00:28:19] Adverse Reactions “Decompose” Theme Music

[00:28:26] David Faulkner: On the next episode of Adverse Reactions, “Pitfalls in Pharmaceutical Production: Protecting the Actual Drug Makers”. That is, the people in the factories that make the drugs. 

[00:28:37] Elizabeth Vancza: I do enjoy that occupational toxicology is much more of an applied science, as opposed to traditional toxicology roles, even within chemical companies or within pharma. You’re not in a lab necessarily. You’re not running studies or things like that, but you are interpreting the studies and then applying that to different situations in the workplace. 

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[00:29:01] Anne Chappelle: Thank you, all, for joining us for this episode of Adverse Reactions, presented by the Society of Toxicology. 

[00:29:07] David Faulkner: And thank you to Dave Leve at Ma3stro Studios, 

[00:29:10] Anne Chappelle: that’s Ma3stro with a three, not an E, 

[00:29:13] David Faulkner: who created and produced all the music for Adverse Reactions, including the theme song, "Decompose." 

[00:29:19] Anne Chappelle: The viewpoints and information presented in Adverse Reactions represent those of the participating individuals. Although the Society of Toxicology holds the copyright to this production, it has, 

[00:29:31] David Faulkner: definitely,

[00:29:32] Anne Chappelle: not vetted or reviewed the information presented herein,

[00:29:36] David Faulkner: nor does presenting and distributing this podcast represent any proposal or endorsement of any position by the Society.

[00:29:42] Anne Chappelle: You can find out more information about the show at AdverseReactionsPodcast.com 

[00:29:48] David Faulkner: and more information about the Society of Toxicology on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter. 

[00:29:54] Anne Chappelle: I’m Anne Chappelle, 

[00:29:55] David Faulkner: and I’m David Faulkner. 

[00:29:57] Anne Chappelle: This podcast was approved by Anne’s mom.

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[00:30:10] End of Episode