Most of the commercial chemicals that enter the market in the United States have insufficient health and safety data. The EPA uses a variety of techniques to fill data gaps in order to evaluate chemical hazard, exposure and risk. Public concern over the potential threat that these chemicals pose has grown in recent years, along with the realization that traditional animal-testing methods are not pragmatic by means of speed, economics or ethics. Researchers at the George Washington University have developed a new approach to rapidly screen pesticides for safety, performance and how long they will last in the environment. The new approach will aid in the design of safer pesticides.
In many ways, our tool mimics computational drug discovery, in which vast libraries of chemical compounds are screened for their efficacy and then tweaking to make them even more potent against specific therapeutic targets. It is a powerful tool for both industry and regulatory agencies that can help design new, safer analogs of existing commercial agrochemicals and so protect human life, the environment and industry's bottom line.
The team analyzed 700 pesticides from the EPA. The model considered pesticide persistence in the environment, its safety, and how well it was able to kill or repel the target problem.
Only 52 of the chemical compounds analyzed fulfilled the criteria for a safe chemical. According to the researchers, the results of the analysis suggest that most pesticides are not safe, but they could be made safer by modifying their structure in ways that would reduce their toxicity without sacrificing performance.
The analysis shows there is room for improvement when it comes to developing safer pesticides.
The team hopes to improve their model with pesticide design from biobased, renewable chemical building blocks.
The study was published in the journal Science Advances.
More information: Jessica M. Lewer et al, Structure-to-process design framework for developing safer pesticides, Science Advances (2022). DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.abn2058. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.abn2058 Journal information: Science Advances Citation: Researchers' novel tool to help develop safer pesticides (2022, March 30) retrieved 30 March 2022 from https://phys.org/news/2022-03-tool-safer-pesticides.html This document is subject to copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study or research, no part may be reproduced without the written permission. The content is provided for information purposes only.
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