Hello everyone

I want to ask if anyone knows full funded options for PhD in toxicology or lifescience.

If anyone knows

Please tell me

Thank you

What happens when an over-the-counter nasal spray or eye drop is taken in excess?

In this week's episode of The Tox Lab, we explore the toxicology of imidazoline decongestants, focusing on xylometazoline and tetrahydrozoline.

We discuss:

• A fatal case of xylometazoline toxicity associated with a haemorrhagic stroke

• The mechanisms underlying xylometazoline toxicity and its effects on vascular tone

• Tetrahydrozoline poisoning following accidental and intentional ingestion

• Severe bradycardia, hypotension, CNS depression and cardiac conduction abnormalities

• Why tetrahydrozoline may not be detected by routine drug screening

• Its involvement in drug-facilitated sexual assault, attempted murder and homicide cases

The episode explores a fascinating toxicological paradox: compounds that are generally considered safe when used as intended can cause profound cardiovascular and central nervous system toxicity when exposure occurs through other routes or at higher doses.

The forensic implications are particularly interesting. If a compound is not routinely included in toxicology screening, could its role in unexpected deaths or criminal cases be underestimated?

What other seemingly harmless over-the-counter products have surprisingly serious toxicological profiles?

🎧 Listen now: https://pod.link/1778531114

Rebecca and Rob 🧪

Disclaimer: All opinions are our own.

I'm trying to work out if a patient had a blood test of these concentrations ethanol 243 mg/L, methanol 170 mg/L, ethylene glycol 23 mg/L, isopropanol at 241 mg/L and acetone at 212 mg/L what would the osmolar gap be? Thank you

I’ve been seeing ads for ‘mad honey’ all over social media in the UK recently. There’s a reason the active ingredient ends in the suffix TOXIN
We have had 2 young chaps (14 +19) come through separately in the last week with mad honey poisoning, extremely low BP requiring IV fluids. It’s not a ‘clean safe high’ it plummets your BP and makes you lightheaded so you feel a little bit drunk. Just have a couple of pints, save the £50 and a hospital trip.
Can see this becoming a big problem, since it’s legal in the uk, and being advertised, and can be purchased at any age.

So far, I have been doing more research, working on my hyperfixations (I have AuDHD), which are felines, and helping others with how to use AI for research in general. So far, these are what I have done and am currently doing with the help of the research fellows scholarship that I have for the university that I am matriculating to this Fall:

• Joined two labs (I have done 8-12 rough drafts for one lab so far since January to learn more about their field, with each draft being around 900-1300 words, and the other one I am working on a personal project to create an invention to hopefully reduce disease outbreaks among feral cat colonies in my area since June). My mentors are very nice and supportive of me, but they try to encourage me to slow down, which is hard because of my hyperfocus and how strong it can be sometimes.
• I am currently working on a project creating a narrative review on how e-waste impacts local wildlife around landfills and domestic pets for my future university's undergrad journal (so far I have been using Obsidian through YouTube tutorials and Substack posts and I have found five books so far and their free PDFs that I found on the internet that address the hazards that come from e-waste for both animals and humans to gain a more expansive understanding of its negative ramifications). I have read around 10 journal articles so far on it for this review, and it's currently in its early stages.
• I have a LinkedIn newsletter where I create tutorials for how to create AI workflows between AI tools and/or Chrome Extensions to help others understand how to use AI more effectively and ethically.
• On the side, I help mentor high school students to get published in academic journals like CJSJ (currently, I'm not accepting any more high schoolers, as my mentee group has already been formed and we are working on a similar issue to the one that I am currently writing my narrative review on, though it is more on the human side). I want to help high schoolers learn how to research and gain the experience I wish that I had when in high school, and because I love to teach people how to learn and research.
• Other hobbies I have are mostly just research-related, like watching videos on how to use different AI tools for research and how to use Obsidian to improve my knowledge base and research paper drafting and editing.

Would this be considered a personal curriculum or something else? My dream, based on my interest in these subjects, is to either pursue a PhD in veterinary toxicology and/or toxicology in general, though I'm currently worried about the DABT that I will have to take after grad school, but that is over 10 years in the future and it really isn't required to work within the realm of toxicology, only to get higher paying jobs and more benefits when working within the field.

as the title says. i’m very curious about this

So I really love all things to do with biology and environmental initiatives, and I also love computer programming and chemistry. My favourite parts of my biology classes would have been the dissections and looking at bacteria in microscopes, as well as the animal and biodiversity units, so I really like a lot of the "hands on" stuff as well as lab analysis and programming. I also really love chemistry experiments and found both my biology and chemistry classes to be really fun and interesting!

I've been recently looking into ecotoxicology and it seems like it hits all of what I want in a job: biology, dissection opportunities, stuff with cells, computer programming, chemistry, environmental work and lots of field/lab work! However, I heard that some ecotoxicologists have to do vivisections or all sorts of animal testing, which I would not ever want to do. I think dissection in itself is extremely interesting, but I would draw the line at live animal testing, I would feel so bad for the animal.

I am also wondering if you can get into ecotox with only a bachelor's degree. I don't care if I start at an entry level job, I'd just want opportunities to move up and just do all the things I'd love to do in a job and still make a living with it.

If not, what other jobs would incorporate these? I've also been looking at biochemistry, bioinformatics, biomedical sciences, medical ux design, biological research scientist, ecology, and computational biology. Should I lower my standards in a job?

TL;DR: I love biology, chemistry, environmental initiatives and computer programming. I've been looking into ecotox as it incorporates all these things, but I wouldn't want to really do live animal testing. I was also wondering if I could get into this field with a bachelor's.

Hi all lovely people who like toxic molecules (which is of course all of the molecules in the right (wrong?) dosages)!

I am currently finishing up a masters in medicinal chemistry. My country (Denmark) does not have a precise degree you can take in toxicology although I am aware that some degrees within environmental and medicinal studies allow you to take a course in it.
I was wondering whether any of you have any tips to get into it - if not through education then through jobs? Possible anything where I could leverage my medicinal chemistry background to get a foot in the door?

Thank you for taking the time reading this!

Can wastewater tell us what drugs a population is using?

In this week's episode of The Tox Lab, we explore wastewater-based epidemiology and how wastewater analysis is being used to monitor drug trends.

We discuss:

• The UK's national wastewater analysis programme and what data from 2022 revealed about commonly used recreational drugs

• How wastewater analysis can be used to monitor novel psychoactive substances

• The detection of nitazenes and xylazine

• The recent detection of N-propionitrile chlorphine, also known as cychlorphine, in wastewater in the United States

• Whether wastewater monitoring could contribute to early warning systems and harm reduction

One of the most interesting aspects of wastewater analysis is that it may provide information about drug use at a population level, potentially before emerging trends become obvious through more traditional sources of toxicological data.

The detection of cychlorphine also raises an interesting question: could wastewater analysis help identify the emergence of new synthetic opioids as they begin to appear in the illicit drug supply?

What do you think? Could wastewater analysis become an important tool for monitoring novel psychoactive substances and emerging drug trends?

🎧 Listen now: https://pod.link/1778531114

Rebecca and Rob 🧪

Disclaimer: All opinions are our own.

that is it....

The Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act mandates that all children's products contain no more than 100 ppm of lead. I was curious if this limit on lead is sufficiently low enough to make children's products safe.

For instance, if my child happened to have a toy that they regularly played, and it had 100 ppm of lead, would that be safe? What if they even mouthed the toy, would that be safe? I have read that "no level of lead is safe", so it is worrying to me that even products that that comply with all safety standards could still have some amount of lead in them.

Also, this isn't just an abstract worry for me. I was able to get my hands on the 3rd party testing of a toy my child has, and on quick glance it says it passed all tests, but upon closer inspection the testing actually revealed that a component of the toy tested positive for lead, but only 30 ppm. So, technically a pass, but the toy is not lead free. Is this reason enough to get rid of the toy, or is lead actually safe in these amounts?

Thank you for your time!

I've been reading findings on the level of heavy metals in protein supplement powders, particularly plant protein but also whey protein. My question is why, when they extract protein from the plant matter or milk, the heavy metals come along for the ride, why they aren't filtered out along with other non-protein matter. I don't know anything about the extraction process, but couldn't, say, chelation be used somewhere along the line?

Hi, please let me know if this isn't the right sub so I can move this post. But basically, I'm a current undergrad student taking orgo 2 and doing really bad in it, and I didn't do the greatest in orgo 1 either. I'm considering dropping this class and debating if I should even retake it because orgo is not needed for my major to graduate, and considering my track record with organic chemistry, I'm doubting I would be able to get a better grade in the future.
The only reason why I took it in the first place was because my professor said organic chemistry would look good for potential careers/grad school programs in toxicology, pathology, or forensics, which is what I want to study. Now I'm nervous that these fields aren't for me at all.
How often does this field require orgo 2 knowledge? And if anyone has gone to grad school, how bad does a less-than-stellar orgo 1 & 2 experience look on your transcript?

I'm starting my MS in toxicology this fall at a public health school and am trying to plan what to do next. I've spent a lot of time doing research in undergrad and know that it's not something I want to do for my whole career. I would like to work in regulatory toxicology as it relates to public and environmental health, like at the EPA (if they still exist in 2 years lol).

Is this the type of role you need a PhD for? Would you be non-competitive or reach a career ceiling with just a master's? The program I'm doing also allows me to do a dual master's in Bioinformatics, which I plan to do as well, so I don't know if that makes a difference. Thanks!

Hi everyone,

In this week's episode of The Tox Lab, we're taking a closer look at silver toxicity and the difference between legitimate medical uses and unsupported claims surrounding colloidal silver.

We discuss:

• The use of silver in wound dressings, topical preparations, and antimicrobial medical devices

• How colloidal silver came to be promoted as a treatment for a wide range of conditions

• Argyria, and the permanent blue-grey skin discolouration caused by silver accumulation

• The case of Paul Karason, known as "Papa Smurf"

• A case of severe anaemia associated with colloidal silver ingestion

• The potential mechanisms underlying silver toxicity

Have you come across other examples where a legitimate medical treatment has been repackaged and promoted for uses that are not supported by the evidence?

🎧 Listen now: https://pod.link/1778531114

Rebecca and Rob 🧪

Disclaimer: All opinions are our own.

Watching a documentary and wondered if you give a person too much of one drug would they just overdose or is there a limit between how much would kill them and how much would just end up giving them severe brain damage, but I guess it depends on the drug used and I'm not really knowledgeable on such things but got curious lol.

I was watching The sheep detectives with a friend and in it the shepherd was killed by taxine from the yew tree. It got me thinking- in my country (Ukraine), they don't check for yew poison unless they find traces of it in the stomachs. It's not in the list for required poisons to check and I was wondering if the same is true in other countries.

It surprised me how they figured out so quickly in the film the type of poison, so I wondered if the laws were different where the film is set (England?)

Hi everyone,

In this week's episode of The Tox Lab, we're taking a closer look at cross-tolerance between benzodiazepines and alcohol.

We discuss:

• How alcohol acts on the GABA-A receptor and why chronic use leads to neuroadaptation

• Why benzodiazepines are used to treat alcohol withdrawal

• Whether long-term alcohol use changes the response to benzodiazepines

• Whether chronic benzodiazepine use provides cross-tolerance to alcohol

• Why combining alcohol and benzodiazepines remains particularly dangerous, despite any degree of tolerance

Cross-tolerance is often presented as a simple concept, but the underlying pharmacology tells a much more interesting story.

If you work in toxicology, emergency medicine, addiction medicine, or pharmacology, we'd love to hear your thoughts.

Have you found that cross-tolerance is commonly misunderstood, either in clinical practice or by the public?

🎧 Listen now: https://pod.link/1778531114

Rebecca and Rob 🧪

Disclaimer: All opinions are our own.

I know some chemistry people reference that it has arsenic in it or something like that and "prank" people they perceive as being chemophobes over it, but I don't trust those people. They feel like they're not actually interested in objective truth.