Welcome to the home page for the EMS Risk Assessment Special Interest Group !!

The Risk Assessment Special Interest Group (SIG) within the Environmental Mutagen Society is a mid-sized, eclectic, and congenial group of individuals with shared interests in the broad area of risk assessment, particularly as it relates to genetic toxicology, mutagenesis, and carcinogenesis. This core group of scientist within EMS has been assembling each year at the EMS Meeting since 1997 to discuss a wide range of topics that are pertinent to risk assessment. Topics that have been discussed in the Risk Assessment SIG meetings include different approaches for risk analysis and low-dose extrapolation, the use of cancer biomarkers, the use of transgenic animal data in risk assessment, different government agency approaches to risk assessment, establishing chemical mode-of-action, and the application of the genetic toxicology tests to risk assessment.

One of the strengths of the EMS Risk Assessment SIG is our diversity. Our meetings are usually well-attended by scientists from government regulatory agencies from several countries, academia, pharmaceutical companies, chemical companies, and contract laboratories. This diversity in background and perspective leads to the stimulating informal discussions that are a hallmark of EMS, in general, and the Risk Assessment SIG, in particular. At our SIG breakfast meetings, we always run out of time for discussion before the attendees run out of things to say!

Beyond the Risk Assessment SIG meeting, which takes place every year as part of the Annual EMS Meeting, members can share information with other EMS Risk Assessment SIG members via a monitored e-mail distribution list. Information of general interest to the Risk Assessment SIG can be forwarded to Barbara Parsons for distribution to the SIG membership. The e-mail contact list is also used to solicit suggestions for speakers and topics for upcoming Risk Assessment SIG breakfast meetings. Finally, the Risk Assessment SIG has compiled a list of many valuable links to online resources used by the Risk Assessment community that can be accessed from our SIG webpage. We encourage EMS members with an interest in Risk Assessment to become active participants in our SIG!