ACTRA

ACTRA is excited to partner with SETAC Australasia for the 2025 conference in Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington, Aotearoa New Zealand! 📅 Mark your calendars for 25th-28th August 2025 to explore the theme: "Building a lasting legacy: Our choice, their future."

ACTRA is pleased to present a webinar on “Exploring Metal Toxicity: Case Studies in Environmental Health Risk Assessments” by John Frangos, on 7 November, 2024.

⏳ Have You Renewed Your Membership and Registration? ⌛ To keep your registration current and maintain your ACTRA membership, please make sure your annual membership and registration renewal fees are up to date. 🗓️ 🔸 Registration Term: Your registration is valid for 5 years from the date it was accepted.  🔸 Membership Renewal: Ensure your ACTRA membership renewal fee is paid for 2024/2025.  🔸 RACTRA/FACTRA Renewal: Your renewal fee is included in your membership renewal. How to Renew: Head over to the "Manage My Membership" page and follow the simple steps to renew online! If you have any assistance, please conaact ACTRA secretariat: secretariat@actra.org.au

📢 ACTRA Members: Don’t Forget to Update Your Contact Details! 📢 It’s important to keep your contact information up to date with ACTRA to ensure you stay informed about all upcoming events and important updates. Please contact the ACTRA Secretariat to update your details on the ACTRA website.

📢 ACTRA Members: Don’t Forget to Update Your Contact Details! 📢 It’s important to keep your contact information up to date with ACTRA to ensure you stay informed about all upcoming events and important updates. Please contact the ACTRA Secretariat to update your details on the ACTRA website.

⏳ Have You Renewed Your Membership and Registration? ⌛ To keep your registration current and maintain your ACTRA membership, please make sure your annual membership and registration renewal fees are up to date. 🗓️ 🔸 Registration Term: Your registration is valid for 5 years from the date it was accepted.  🔸 Membership Renewal: Ensure your ACTRA membership renewal fee is paid for 2024/2025.  🔸 RACTRA/FACTRA Renewal: Your renewal fee is included in your membership renewal. How to Renew: Head over to the "Manage My Membership" page and follow the simple steps to renew online! If you have any assistance, please conaact ACTRA secretariat: secretariat@actra.org.au

ACTRA is pleased to present a webinar on “Australian Total Diet Study” by Keith Henderson, on October 3, 2024.

Reflecting on the final day of the ACTRA Annual Scientific Meeting a week ago in Canberra. Some very interesting sessions to round off the final day of the conference including: - kicking off the day with an acknowledgement to Wear it Purple Day! - Session 4: Climate Impact on Bushfires and their Toxic Effects with insightful presentations on managing landscape fire regimes (by Rochelle Christian), a natural experiment with exposure of rhesus monkeys to bushfire smoke (by Lisa Miller), and an account of in vitro interactions between carbonyl compounds (by Philip Burcham). - Session 5: The recently aptly renamed Peter & Karen Di Marco Student Travel Grant was awarded to Luke Thompson for his innovative work on AmesFormer for mutagenicity prediction. - Session 6: Understanding and mitigating the health impacts of extreme heat (by Ollie Jay), climate-dependent stock water screening levels for PFAS (by Katie Richardson), mitigating arsenic contaminated dust sources in a drying climate (by Kara Fry), - Session 7 provided us with two great poster sessions over lunch on forecasting calls to the Poisons Info Centre during wild mushroom season (by Peter Bain) and safety assessment of micro/nano plastic libraries 2 (by Yasuo Tsutsumi). - Session 8 focused on climate change and biota with presentations on subterranean biota and groundwater integrity preservation (by Mattia Sacco), poisonous plants & risks to livestock (by Rhian Cope), and the rise of moulds as a result of extreme weather events (complete with props by Jackii Shepherd). - Taking us to the end of the conference in Session 9 was a great keynote by Jenny Stauber who illustrated how we can incorporate climate change considerations into environmental risk assessment with a case study in the Great Barrier Reef. Thanks to everyone’s efforts in preparing your presentations and sharing your knowledge!! Overall it was a fantastic meeting :)

Reflecting on the great night just over a week ago at the ACTRA Annual Scientific Meeting Dinner. A touching presentation honouring Brian Priestly ‘s lifetime membership award with personal accounts from some of his first PhD students including Andrew Harman, Paul Wright & Roger Drew in the room. This was followed by the very entertaining ACTRA humour awards led by Alyson Macdonald and Sheridan Chapman. And then of course a night of good food & letting loose on the dance floor! 💃 🪩 🕺 I had a great time and am looking forward to the next one!

Day 2 of last week’s ACTRA conference (Day 1 of the Annual Scientific Meeting) was also jam-packed with thought-provoking presentations from our invited speakers & submitted abstracts! - Session 1: Climatoxicology 101 with Prof David Karoly giving us a great overview, followed by myself & Carolyn Brumley on key impacts of climate change on tox/risk assessment & the water treatment sector. - Session 2 included very interesting case studies on impacts of harmful algae on recreational water safety (by Rachael Poon), a fantastic presentation on (shiny)ssdtools for deriving water quality guidelines (by Rebecca Fisher), and an important (and entertaining) account of a study in QLD on trihalomethane exposure in drinking water (by Phil Choi). - Session 3 included talks by Larissa Schneider on impacts of climate change on mercury exposure, using risk assessment to support the use of recycled aggregates (by Ruth Jarman), a cluedo mystery account of unusual exposure to PFAS by a lone firefighter (by Sheridan Chapman), followed by a talk that sparked discussion on the language used for risk communication (by Jackie Wright). - Session 4 provided a nice change to the format of the meeting with a discussion panel on the impacts of climate change on pesticide practices & pesticide risk assessment (moderated by Lana Barbour, with Rhian Cope, Gregory Sekulic, and Maria Trainer as panel members). Thanks to all of you for being willing to provide your time & expertise to contribute to the meeting!