• Question: What kind of jobs would involve Toxicology to do with animals?

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      Asked by 287txce38 to Anais, katy, Lauren, Richard, Stuart on 9 Mar 2016. This question was also asked by Katie, villiger#17.
      • Photo: Stuart Atkinson

        Stuart Atkinson answered on 9 Mar 2016:

        Maybe investigating environmental pollution and its effect on ecosystems. I think at the start of the Godzilla (1998) film the main character is studying the effects on worms of radiation pollution, so that’s a sort of example! Certain fish are notorious concentrators of aquatic pollutants, which is bad because if one small fish eats something toxic, then a big fish eats a hundred toxic little fish, then a person eats a few big fish, it is going to be bad for them. So understanding the fate of chemicals in the environment and how they interact with animals is important.

      • Photo: Lauren Laing

        Lauren Laing answered on 9 Mar 2016:

        I think Stuart covered this really well! It is very important to understand what happens to chemicals when they enter the water systems, and what effects this might have on fish, and on other animals which may eat those fish.

      • Photo: Anais Kahve

        Anais Kahve answered on 10 Mar 2016:

        If you want to be a toxicologist and work with animals you could become a Study Director. This is someone who overseas animal testing for compounds like medical drugs and pesticides. There is a lot of responsibility with this job because you have to make sure that your test doesn’t harm the animals and that you get as much information from the animals whilst using as few of them as possible. You could become a Regulator for a company. A Regulator is someone that analyses all of the data that have come from animal tests and has to figure out whether the compound is safe enough to be sold. Regulators don’t work directly with animals but you have to understand animal biology if you want to do this job.

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