Alexandra Maertens, PhD, Research Associate, Johns Hopkins University

The Department of Chemistry Presents, via online and in-person Zoom Presentation:  Dr. Alexandea Maertens, PhD, Research Associate, Johns Hopkins University

Central to the goals of Green Chemistry is to design less toxic, more environmentally friendly chemicals - but this can't happen unless we have a way to conclusively connect chemical structure to the precise molecular mechanisms of toxicology, and do so quickly and cheaply. This means moving toxicology away from the current reliance on "black-box" animal models that are slow and sometimes of limited relevance to human physiology, and moving it towards a discipline that is data-driven and takes advantage of human data - ranging from in vitro technologies, to organ-on-a-chip and exposome-based approaches. 

BIO

Alexandra Maertens currently works at the Center for Alternatives to Animal Testing (CAAT), Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Dr. Maertens is the head of the Green Toxicology program and specializes in the use of "big data" approaches for hazard assessment. As part of the Mapping the Human Toxome Project, she developed tools to use high-content and high-throughput data for hazard assessment. She is also a Senior Toxicologist at Consortium for Environmental Risk Management.

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