International Autumn School: Dynamic Modelling of Toxic Effects (DMoTE)
Learn toxicokinetic and toxicodynamic modelling, and how to analyse and interpret toxicity data in ecotoxicology (focus mainly on DEB-based modelling).
This international autumn school consists of an online pre-course and an on-site part. The pre-course is organized as a series of 4 online meetings, in weekly sessions of about four hours in the afternoon on 25.8. - 1.9. - 8.9. - 15.9.
The on-site course will be organized and hosted by Osnabrück University at the campus Westerberg from September 21 - 25.
Teaching and learning methods
Teaching will be a combination of lectures, computer exercises, group projects, and discussions.
Learning Outcome
In this course, students/participants will:
- Understand the concepts of toxicokinetic (TK) and toxicodynamic (TD) processes
- Understand the basics of mechanistic effect modelling (General Unified Threshold models of Survival, GUTS and Dynamic Energy Budget, DEB)
- Learning to work with the BYOM platform in Matlab or in the memPyGUTS package in Python
- Build simple TK models, and TD models for survival
- Build TKTD models for sub-lethal effects
- Use them to analyse and interpret toxicity data
- Analyse a case study, and discuss and interpret the results
Required skills and prior knowledge
The course materials assume that the participants have a limited background in mathematics, statistics, ecotoxicology, modelling and coding, ideally in Matlab or Python. This means that some parts may be easy for you, while others will be challenging. However, these parts will differ between participants.
Teaching objectives
Familiarise participants with the principles and basics of toxicokinetic (TK) and toxicodynamic (TD) concepts, and with the techniques of their modelling and model fitting to observational data. The hands-on exercises with Matlab/BYOM and Python/MemPyGUTS are at an intermediate level: not push-button user-friendliness, and not expert level where you have to code everything yourself. The aim is to teach the participants ‘transferrable modelling skills’ so that they can develop, simulate, fit, analyse, understand dynamic models on their own.
Pre-course schedule and content
- Modelling basics, Introduction to TK, Multi-compartment TK models (25.8.)
- Statistics for model fitting 1, Linking TK to TKTD, Basics of GUTS (1.9.)
- Statistics for model fitting 2, More GUTS, GUTS in ERA (8.9.)
- Statistics for model fitting 3, Basics of DEB, Basics of DEB-TKTD (15.9.)
We treat one- and two-compartment TK models in some detail, and use the General Unified Threshold models of Survival (GUTS) variant stochastic death (GUTS-SD) as a simple practical model to illustrate TKTD principles. Dynamic Energy Budget (DEB) models will be introduced shortly, and their connection to TKTD modeling in form of DEB-TKTD models will be explored.
Lecturers
- Andreas Focks (University of Osnabrück)
- Florian Schunck (University of Osnabrück)
- Simon Hansul (gaiac eco assessment)
- Andre Gergs (Bayer)
- Annika Mangold-Döring (Wageningen Environmental Research)
- Nina Cedergreen (University of Copenhagen)