Society of Toxicology Develops Learning Framework for Undergraduate Toxicology Courses Following the Vision and Change Core Concepts Model.

The Society of Toxicology announces the development of a Learning Framework (https://www.toxicology.org/education/docs/SOT-Toxicology-Learning-Objectives.pdf) for undergraduate toxicology that will facilitate the development and sharing of evidence-based teaching materials for undergraduate toxicology educators throughout the world. This Learning Framework was modeled on the "Vision and Change Report" (www.visionandchange.org), an effort of the National Science Foundation and American Association for the Advancement of Science defining Core Concepts and Core Competencies to inform undergraduate biology course design. Vision and Change (V&C) has gained national acceptance, becoming a foundation for 14 upper-level courses designed by professional life science scientific societies. The undergraduate toxicology Learning Framework includes 5 Core Concepts aligned with V&C that encompass the discipline of toxicology: Evolution; Biological Information, Risk and Risk Management; Systems Toxicology; and Pathways and Transformations for Energy and Matter. Underpinning the Core Concepts are Level 2 Toxicology Concepts, which are broad disciplinary categories, Level 3 Learning Objectives, which address specific learning goals, and Level 4 Example Learning Objectives and Case Studies, which provide examples of how content might be taught. Syllabi from more than 20 undergraduate toxicology courses and several undergraduate toxicology textbooks were surveyed to determine toxicology-related Learning Objectives. From these, undergraduate educators can design courses tailored to their institutional needs by selecting a subset of Learning Objectives. Publication of a Learning Framework for toxicology will enable integration into other disciplines and facilitate the development and sharing of evidenced-based teaching materials for toxicology to educators in allied disciplines. Ultimately this will expand toxicology's impact to a broader audience.

Exposure to the metabolic inhibitor sodium azide induces stress protein expression and thermotolerance in the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans.

Historically, sodium azide has been used to anesthetize the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans; however, the mechanism by which it survives this exposure is not understood. In this study, we report that exposure of wild-type C elegans to 10 mM sodium azide for up to 90 minutes confers thermotolerance (defined as significantly increased survival probability [SP] at 37 degrees C) on the animal. In addition, sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis revealed enhanced Hsp70 expression, whereas Western blot analysis revealed the induction of Hsp16. We also tested the only known C elegans Hsp mutant def-21 (codes for Hsp90), which constitutively enters the stress-resistant state known as the dauer larvae. Daf-21 mutants also acquire sodium azide-induced thermotolerance, whereas 3 non-Hsp, constitutive dauer-forming mutants exhibited a variable response to azide exposure. We conclude that the ability of C elegans to survive exposure to azide is associated with the induction of at least 2 stress proteins.