New Updates to the CompTox Chemicals Dashboard and Generalized Read-Across (GenRA) Web-Application Tool

Published September 27, 2022

There are thousands of chemicals for which there is little data about the potential health and ecological effects available. Traditional toxicity testing is time and resource intensive, so to fill this gap EPA researchers are developing and improving applications, tools, databases, and resources to determine chemical safety in a more efficient, data driven way. 

One of these applications is the CompTox Chemicals Dashboard (Dashboard), which contains a wealth of data that scientists and other decision makers use to make informed decisions about the potential health and environmental effects of chemicals. Generalized Read-Across (GenRA) is a standalone tool linked to the Dashboard that algorithmically performs Read-Across, which can help researchers make informed decisions about chemicals with little toxicity data available.

New versions of both applications bring groundbreaking new features and more data to meet the evolving needs of chemical risk assessment.

CompTox Chemicals Dashboard

The new Dashboard release adds ~300,000 new chemicals in DSSTox, and now includes over 400 chemical lists, updated exposure data, and new EPA ToxCast data. It also includes data about how a given chemical can affect gene expression (High Throughput Transcriptomics or HTTr) and the structure of a cell (High Throughput Phenotypic Profiling or HTPP) that can be visualized using plots. Updates also include ADME (absorption, distribution, metabolism, and excretion) to IVIVE (in vitro-in vivo extrapolation) data for multiple species and models. All data can be downloaded for further study.

This update increases the number of chemicals covered by the dashboard to over 1.2 million, and also makes it easier to download the data by allowing the batch download of hazard data, as well as experimental and predicted chemical property data.

GenRA

If you’re working with a chemical that isn’t covered by this wealth of data, Generalized Read-Across (GenRA) can help fill the gaps by taking information for one substance (the source substance) and using it to help predict the same endpoint for another similar substance (the target substance). This similarity is typically based on the chemical structure of the substances.  However, GenRA offers the possibility of identifying similar substances based on a combination of chemical structure and bioactivity (ToxCast) information.

The new update allows users to evaluate the relevancy of similar substances using predicted physical property and environmental fate information. Predictions of toxicity and bioactivity can be made and the outcomes can be downloaded for further analysis.

Upcoming Training

If you want to learn more about the Dashboard a training session will take place on October 18. Join the New Approach Methods training email list for more information about this and future training about EPA tools.

Learn more about EPA’s New Approach Methods research.

Learn more about EPA’s Center for Computational Toxicology and Exposure.

Learn more about EPA’s Chemical Safety for Sustainability National Research Program.

Sign up for EPA’s Computational Toxicology Communities of Practice.