Toxicologist

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Forensic Toxicologist
Toxinologist

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Clerical or OrganisingAnalytic or ScientificSkill Level 5

Toxicologists study the harmful effects of chemical, physical and biological agents on living organisms by detecting and examining the symptoms, mechanisms and treatments of poisoning (especially the poisoning of people).

They also determine safe or acceptable levels of exposure to particular agents.  FutureGrowthModerate

ANZSCO ID: 234599

Specialisations:

  • Analytical Toxicologist - identifies and measures toxic agents in biological and environmental samples to determine the extent of exposure (after poisoning or a chemical spill, or during long-term environmental contamination, for example) and to monitor the remediation of chemical spills.

  • Clinical Toxicologist - has medical qualifications to study the harmful effects of chemicals, drugs, pesticides and other substances on humans through the clinical diagnosis of symptoms and biological poisoning. Clinical toxicologists also treat and manage intoxicated patients.

  • Environmental Toxicologist/Ecotoxicologist - studies the harmful effects of environmental exposure to chemical, physical and biological agents on living organisms (including their effects on humans, fish, other animals and plants), as well as their effects on ecosystems.

  • Occupational Toxicologist - studies the harmful effects of substances used in the workplace to determine a safe or acceptable level of exposure to workers, as well as appropriate control measures to reduce or eliminate worker exposure.

  • Regulatory Toxicologist - has the primary role of ensuring public health and safety from the use of chemicals, drugs and pesticides by identifying potential health risks posed by exposure to such substances. Regulatory toxicologists provide advice to governments, health professionals, politicians and the public on potential risks associated with chemical exposure so that appropriate risk management strategies may be implemented to protect the health of workers and the public. 

Knowledge, skills and attributes

  • enjoy and have an aptitude for science and research

  • able to think logically and analytically

  • able to carry out detailed and accurate work

  • good communication skills

  • able to think creatively and solve problems

  • able to work as part of a team 

 

Students studying Toxicology
Students studying Toxicology at UWA

 

Duties and Tasks

Toxicologists may perform the following tasks:

  • study the amount of exposure to a substance (from pollution caused by environmental contaminants such as industrial waste products or emergency events such as a gas leak, for example) and the potential effect it may have on public health, plants, animals and the ecosystem

  • study how exposure to foreign chemicals affects the genetic, chemical, physical and structural composition of cells, tissues, organ systems and whole organisms

  • devise and carry out experiments to determine how chemical or drug concentrations in the body change over time

  • test newly discovered or manufactured substances for their safety, effects and possible use as drugs

  • analyse blood, urine and other biological and environmental samples to identify the chemical composition and concentration of drugs, contaminants and other substances

  • evaluate evidence from cases where tampering and contamination has occurred

  • write scientific reports on research and investigations, as well as more general information for scientific, managerial, political and general audiences

  • document results, preserve evidence and maintain chain of custody (the document or paper trail showing the process from evidence seizure through to the presentation of the evidence in court) in criminal investigations

  • provide advice to managers, politicians, primary producers, healthcare workers, the general public and community groups 

 

Education and training/entrance requirements

To become a toxicologist you usually have to complete a relevant science or forensics degree at university with a major in toxicology.

Toxicologists are employed across several industries, including pharmaceutical, food and chemical industries, environmental management, scientific research, government regulatory agencies, and other research organisations and health services. They are also employed in hospitals and educational institutions.

 


Forensic Toxicologist

 

Clerical or OrganisingAnalytic or ScientificSkill Level 5Skill Level 6

The term "forensics" means "of or having to do with a question of law." Forensic toxicologists are simply toxicologists who apply their knowledge to legal matters. They play a crucial role in solving crimes and helping to determine causes of death. Future Growth Very Strong

Forensic toxicologists play an important role in determining how certain substances affect human bodies. Their work often benefits the medical field, law enforcement and individuals who have lost loved ones. A forensic toxicologist is a scientist who performs specialized tests to examine tissue samples and bodily fluids for drugs or other chemicals. Through their research, they can help law enforcement officials determine what happened at the scene of accidents or medical emergencies. They can also contribute to the medical field by determining how substances impact the health of individuals and society. Families, investigtors and legal experts often rely on forensic toxicologists to determine how or why an individual died.

A number of crimes involve toxins entering the body, such as poisoning, driving under the influence, and using illegal drugs. Detectives and criminal investigators seek help from forensic toxicologists to get the answers they need when they suspect that a chemical substance is related to a crime.
  
Forensic toxicologists perform scientific tests on bodily fluids and tissue samples to identify any drugs or chemicals present in the body. Crime Scene Investigators rely on the forensic toxicologist to make reliable conclusions about the impact a specific amount of a specific substance would have on a specific individual. Often, this requires the professional to form an educated opinion based on science and experience.

A
Forensic Toxicologist specialises in the study of alcohol, legal and illicit drugs, and poisons, including their chemical composition, preparation and identification. Forensic toxicologists also study the absorption, distribution and elimination characteristics of chemicals and substances in the body, as well as the way in which the body responds to them and the factors that determine drug safety and effectiveness.

Drugs location in body
(Source: Wikipedia)

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Knowledge, skills and attributes

Forensic toxicology involves working with sensitive materials in potentially hazardous environments. To avoid the potential dangers associated with the field and perform well in the role, you may benefit from developing certain skills. Common skills for a forensic toxicologist include:

  • Critical thinking: Using critical thinking skills helps forensic toxicologists make accurate findings.

  • Attention to detail: Paying attention to detail can prevent dangerous or costly errors.

  • Knowledge of chemistry: Understanding chemical structures and reactions can ensure forensic toxicologists handle samples and equipment safely.

  • Clinical methodology: Working in a forensic toxicology lab requires a scientific approach that allows professionals to function separately from their emotions.

  • Communication skills: Excellent written and verbal communication skills, as they may be called upon to provide courtroom testimony. Forensic toxicologists often communicate their findings with officials such as health care providers, law enforcement officers, lawyers and judges.

  • Patience, efficiency, and focus to gather results under pressure


Forensic Toxicologist at work
(Source: Chem Centre WA)

Duties and Tasks

Forensic toxicologists test samples of human tissue to determine if they're affected by a substance. If a substance is found, they work to understand how it impacted the person's health or behaviour. They typically work at law enforcement facilities, medical examiner's offices or private establishments like drug testing laboratories.
  
Some primary duties of a forensic toxicologist include:

  • Testing tissues such as bodily fluids for drugs, alcohol, chemicals, gases and other substances. Identifying unknown substances by testing samples using chromatography, spectrometry, or other chemical tests

  • Measuring the concentration of substances within the tissues. Reviewing autopsy reports and performing toxicological tests on blood and tissue samples from deceased persons to determine the cause of death

  • Researching the effects of alcohol or substance consumption under specific circumstances. Interpreting data from drug test results, including blood alcohol levels and drug concentrations in urine, blood, or other body fluids

  • Collecting and testing for harmful contaminants in food, drink or the environment. Conducting lab tests to identify illegal drugs such as cocaine, heroin, amphetamines, and cannabis products such as hashish and marijuana

  • Using chemical and biomedical instrumentation

  • Informing law enforcement officers about the presence of substances or alcohol in an individual's system

  • Working with medical examiners to determine if substances contributed to a person's death

  • Helping environmental professionals measure the effects of certain chemicals on people and wildlife

  • In the law enforcement sphere, forensic toxicologists might work for criminal justice agencies, police departments, or government labs. They might look for poisons and toxins such as alcohol, drugs, metals, chemicals, and gases. Sometimes, the toxicologist's findings are the primary factor in determining whether a crime was committed.

  • Providing expert witness testimony in court proceedings


Follow your interest in forensics: Toxicology
https://youtu.be/QevbUnyEgzs

 

 

Working conditions

Most forensic toxicologists work in labs run by law enforcement agencies, medical examiners or private drug testing facilities. They often must sit or stand for long periods of time. The lab is usually run by a private drug testing company, a medical examiner's office, or the police. You may also spend part of your day working out in the field, such as at a crime scene collecting samples.

The tests they perform require very fine motor skills and a dogged commitment to following rigorous scientific protocols.

Working with bodily fluids and tissue samples can be messy and smelly. The forensic toxicologist is also exposed to details about crimes, which can be emotionally difficult.

Expect to work 40 to 60 hours a week, as you manage a heavy workload under stringent deadlines. Hours need to be flexible, as forensic toxicologists are expected to be on call to collect and analyze evidence. In addition, working out in the field visiting crime scenes may also require extended or unusual hours.

The workload can be significant, and when the samples come from a crime scene, the pressure to perform tests faster can be strong. The forensic toxicologist must be able to resist this pressure, work efficiently without rushing and prioritize effectively.


Tools and technologies
  
The forensic toxicologist performs tests on samples collected by forensic pathologists during an autopsy or by crime scene investigators. They use highly sophisticated instruments, chemical reagents and precise methodologies to determine the presence or absence of specific substances in the sample.
  
As part of a team investigating a crime, a forensic toxicologist will isolate and identify any substances in the body that may have contributed to the crime, such as:

Alcohol
Illegal or prescription drugs
Other chemicals
Poisons
Metals
Gases, such as carbon monoxide

The work requires patience and the ability to follow specific steps to achieve reliable results. The forensic toxicologist must document every step of the process and take care to follow rules regarding chain of custody for physical evidence.



Education and training/entrance requirements

A forensic toxicologist generally has a bachelor’s degree in chemistry, clinical chemistry, pharmacology or another scientific field. Courses you might consider as part of your degree program include:

Toxicology
Forensic Science
Statistics
Data Analysis
Anatomy

Some universities now offer master’s degrees and doctoral degrees in forensic toxicology. Eg. Murdoch University; Griffith University; Monash University; UTS; University of Canberra; UNE.

Forensic toxicologists receive most of their training through their educational programs. They may also receive on-the-job training in their roles as forensic toxicologists. This training may include learning about the laboratory’s policies and procedures, the equipment they use and the software they employ.

As the science of forensic toxicology is constantly advancing, the forensic toxicologist has to keep pace with new technologies, methodologies and chemicals and this demands constant learning.

Forensic toxicologists will also need to conduct experiments to develop new techniques for detecting drugs or other substances in body fluids. They will have to conduct research on new drugs that may pose a danger to society, such as designer drugs ( designer drugs ) like bath salts or synthetic marijuana.


Employment Opportunities

The employment of forensic toxicologists is expected to grow much faster than average over the next decade.

The need to identify and prosecute drug traffickers will continue to drive demand for forensic toxicologists. As the use of new drugs increases, these specialists will be needed to identify the types and amounts of drugs present in biological samples.

The field of forensic toxicology has grown to include drug and alcohol testing for employers and traffic enforcement officials as well as testing animal samples for wildlife criminal investigators and testing for “date rape” drugs and performance-enhancing substances.

Forensic toxicologists also work on cases involving environmental contamination, to determine the impact of chemical spills on nearby populations.

 

Did You Know?

Amanda Thompson - Forensic Toxicologist at Queensland Health's Forensic and Scientific Services

"Real stories of life and death: why forensic toxicology is nothing like TV" - taken directly from Health Qld

The Hollywood interpretation of forensics is played out on TV shows like CSI Miami where detectives, like Horatio Caine, stride around crime scenes in suits and sunglasses spitting out fast one liners and the labs are filled with more technology than Star Wars.

In the real world, forensic work involves real people and real stories of life and death, and is a far cry from the examples set by TV shows, as Amanda Thompson explains.

Amanda Thompson at work
Forensic toxicologist Amanda Thompson shares a behind-the-scenes look at forensic work.

I’m a senior chemist with the Forensic Toxicology department at Queensland Health’s Forensic and Scientific Services (FSS). Primarily, my job is about the detection of drugs and alcohol in biological specimens—blood, urine, saliva, hair, liver—as well as other samples from post-mortems.

Most of our samples come from the Queensland Police Service and the Coroner’s office. For the police, there may be saliva samples collected during roadside drug testing, or blood samples from people suspected of driving under the influence of drugs. Other samples come from autopsies around the state and we’ll examine the samples to see if drugs were involved in a death. Or in some cases, we might be looking to see if a drug is absent. For example, if a deceased person was meant to be taking anti-depressants, the absence of the drug can be an important finding.

Amanda Thompson
Forensic toxicologist Amanda Thompson wears a lab coat and stands in a workplace signed 'Bio Hazard Area

We work closely with other teams at FSS like Forensic Pathology and Forensic Chemistry to make sure we’re across the changes in drugs people are taking, so we know what we’re testing for. Some of the so-called ‘legal highs’ have become more popular in recent years, and while they may not be detected in standard workplace drug tests, we have a range of cutting-edge techniques that will pick up most things.

When shows like CSI and NCIS were at their peak, there was an increased interest in this field and it became a more competitive field to get into. Some hearty competition is always welcome in a field like forensics because it helps bring some of the best and brightest minds into science.

However, those shows don’t accurately reflect what we do as our work is very detailed and takes more time than people may realise.

For example, if we are testing for drugs, we first have to extract the drugs out of whatever specimen we’ve received. If it’s a blood sample, it can take a few hours to separate the drugs from the blood and the other stuff mixed in there. From there, it’s run overnight on a machine to analyse before we can produce the results.

Most people working in forensics specialise in one area—toxicology, or DNA for example—we’re generally not multi-disciplinarians. For anyone worried about monotony setting in, please don’t. There is always something interesting to discover.

Although this is an extremely rewarding job, it can also be a challenging job. But I remind myself I’m doing something to help a person, and their family and friends. My work may be able to provide answers which contribute to determining the cause of death or help provide evidence to support police investigations.

Knowing that there is always someone somewhere looking for answers and the results we’re producing helps provide those answers is a rewarding feeling
(Source: Health Qld)

Toxinologist

Nature or RecreationAnalytic or ScientificSkill Level 5Skill Level 6

 

Toxinology is the specialized area of toxicology that deals specifically with animal, plant and microbial toxins, but is also considered a science in its own right.

Toxinology includes more than just the chemistry and mode of action of a toxin. It deals also with the biology of venom- or poison-producing organism, the structure and function of the venom apparatus as well as the use of the venom or poison, the ecological role of these compounds. FutureGrowthModerate

Toxins are natural substances, or substances produced by living organisms, in contrast to toxic substances from chemicals, which are toxicants. Living organisms producing or using toxins do so as either venoms or poisons. Venoms are toxins, or more commonly, collections of varying toxins, that are used actively against prey or predators, most commonly to subdue, kill and digest prey, or disuade predators. Poisons of natural origin, that is containing toxins and used by living organisms, are passive and generally used for defence. A predator attempting to molest or eat a poisonous animal, plant or mushroom will suffer adverse effects from the toxins in the poison, varying from mild discomfort to rapid death. Particularly food poisons, but also for a few venoms, the component toxins are not produced by the deploying animal/plant, but are made by micro-organisms and concentrated and used by the deploying animal/plant. A good example is tetrodotoxin, used by a variety of poisonous animals and by a few venomous animals.

Capabilities

(Source: Norwegian Veterinary Institute's Section for Chemistry and Toxicology)

Toxinologists study toxins, such as venoms and poisons, and the living organisms that produce them, including plants, fungi, microbes and various animals. They research the chemical structure and functions of toxins and explore the biological activities of toxin-producing organisms, like scorpions, snakes and spiders.

A toxinologist's work might focus specifically on improving ways to treat victims of venomous snakebites or jellyfish stings, or he or she might research ways toxins can be purified and cloned for use as medical therapies in patients recovering from strokes or heart attacks or those fighting cancer.

ANZSCO ID: 234599

Specialisations: Clinical Toxinologist -
who focus on the medical effects in humans of exposure to the toxins in animal venoms or plant poisons. This includes such problems as venomous snakebite, currently considered to afflict >2.5 million people each year, with >100,000 deaths.

Knowledge, skills and attributes

Toxinologists need analytical skills so they can conduct accurate, precise experiments in the lab, along with problem-solving and critical-thinking skills to help them formulate answers to tough scientific queries. They also need to exercise diligence since they'll be working with potentially dangerous organisms and their toxins.

    Did You Know?

    If something is a toxin, you can call it toxic. But, of course, this is where things get a bit tricky: while the word toxin only refers to substances that are toxic in low doses, the adjective toxic can be used whenever something causes disease. You can have toxic amounts of water, but water is never considered a toxin. Hence the term toxinology as opposed to toxicology: the latter is the study of adverse effects that occur in living organisms due to chemicals, period. Any chemical in that causes harm no matter how large or repeated a dose required might be examined by toxicologists, while toxinolgists specialize on biologically-produced substances (“biotoxins”) that wreak havoc in small amounts and the biology and ecology of the organisms that wield them.

    Toxins can be further categorized by where they come from. Usually, toxins that are made synthetically are called toxicants, as opposed to the general term toxins, which occur in nature.

    Biological toxins are produced by living creatures, while environmental toxins are not (things like lead and arsenic, for example). Toxins also get classified by what they do, especially to us; hemotoxins are toxins that act on the blood, while neurotoxins attack nerves. And then there are subcategories of toxins based on how they enter the body. Oral toxins, for example, are toxins that cause harm when ingested, while topical toxins or are those that are harmful if applied to the skin. Some toxins are harmless if swallowed, but lethal if injected, so the route of entry can matter greatly. In fact, route of entry is so important that toxinologists use entirely separate words to refer to toxins based on delivery: venoms and poisons.


    Some toxins act when ingested, absorbed through the skin, or inhaled; such toxins are referred to as poisons. Others enter our bodies through wounds deliberately inflicted by the toxic species—those are venoms.

    Essentially boils down to who the aggressor is: the toxic species (venoms) or the one who suffers the effects of the toxins (poisons).

    The difference between poison and venom is why toxinologists cringe every time they see someone referring to a “poisonous snake.”

    Toxins are substances that cause harm in small amounts. There are three main types of toxins:
    * venoms,
    *poisons and
    *toxungens,
    which differ based on route of delivery

    Toxungens are poisons that are aggressively wielded, like the squirting of poison by cane toads or spitting of venom by certain cobra species. Since no wound is inflicted when the toxins are sprayed, they aren’t considered “venoms” in context, but the animals aren’t exactly waiting to be harassed, either. Because the toxic species is actively involved in the delivery of its noxious chemicals, but they aren’t making wounds, we give them a special category all to themselves.

    Toxic

    (Source: Discover)

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Industrial Designer

Inventor

Geneticist

Biotechnologist

Criminologist

Botantist

Agronomist

Historian

Geologist

Soil Scientist

Immunologist

Hydrologist

Anthropologist

Cartographer

Zoologist

Geophysicist

University Lecturer

Exercise Sports Scientist

Oceanographer

Astronomer

Political Scientist

Physicist

Toxicologist

Haematologist

Medical Laboratory Technician

Robotics Engineer

Pharmacologist

Biometrician

Epidemiologist

Medical Laboratory Scientist

Virologist

Demographer

GIS Officer

Herpetologist

Pathologist

Climate Change Analyst

Infectious Disease Specialist

Statistician

Endocrinologist

Bioinformatics Scientist

Ornithologist

Biologist

Domestic Animal Scientist

Arachnologist

Archaeologist

Mathematician

Scientist

Environmental Scientist

Marine Biologist

Museum Curator

Biochemist

Entomologist

Conservator

Microbiologist

Agricultural Scientist

Industrial Designer

Inventor

Geneticist

Biotechnologist

Criminologist

Botantist

Agronomist

Historian

Geologist

Soil Scientist

Immunologist

Hydrologist

Anthropologist

Cartographer

Zoologist

Geophysicist

University Lecturer

Exercise Sports Scientist

Oceanographer

Astronomer

Political Scientist