Research Institute of Hygiene, Toxicology and Occupational Pathology
at Russian Ministry of Health
12, Zemlyachka str., Volgograd, 400048, Russia
Tel/Fax 7-8442-39-53-59
E-mail: filatov@rihtop.ru
BASIC AREAS OF RESEARCH
- Development of safety standards (hygiene regulations) for chemical substances content in different media, including toxic agents to be disposed;
- A comprehensive hygienic, clinical and physiological evaluation of work-related adverse factors and their influence on health of working people;
- Toxicological evaluation of chemical substances presenting a potential threat to human beings;
- Investigation into mechanism of toxic action produced by chemical substances on the organism of warm-blooded animals, with the insight into delayed outcomes of toxic action;
- Development of methods, tools and procedures to diagnose, treat and prevent work-related diseases of chemical origin;
- Development of health monitoring system for munitions demilitarization workers and people living in surrounding communities of buffer zones allocated to chemical weapons destruction objects;
- Search for effective measures to enhance the organism resistance to impacts of harmful chemical factors in industrial environment;
- Design and improvement of methods for analysis of highly toxic chemical substances in environmental objects;
- Toxicological evaluation of chemical substances being potentially dangerous for humans;
- Risk assessment of health effects in population exposed to chemical factors;
- Development of databases and computer-based programs for medical purposes;
- Implementation of sanitary and hygienic estimation of projects for chemical munitions demilitarization objects under construction;
- Training of medical staff in medical aid organization as applied to industrial accidents, with special emphasis on diagnosis and management of acute injuries by toxic agents.
Planning for development of toxicological investigation into evaluation of new medicinal preparations, and toxicological estimation of their chemical safety. The package of documents that provide ground for the inclusion of the Institute into the List of organizations carrying out pre-clinical investigation of drugs has been send to the Department of State Drugs Control (issuing No.175 of 1 April 2004).
TopCredentials
The Institute is accredited by:- Ministry of Industry, Science and Technology of Russian Federation. Certificate No. 4054 of 29 April 2002 of state accreditation of scientific organization. According to the Federal Law "On Science and State Policy in Science and Technology", the Research Institute of Hygiene, Toxicology and Occupational Pathology, as a federal state unitary enterprise, has been accredited, with the fixed period up to 29 April 2005.
- Ministry of Health of Russian Federation and State System of Sanitary and Epidemiological Standardization. The certificate (Register No. 13.15 of 28 April 2001) grants permission to develop normative and methodical documents based on an approved classifier set in the following areas. These are HR (hygiene regulations), MG (methodical guidelines) and GCM (guidelines on control methods) in the next major directions: subgroups 2.1.5, 2.1.6, 2.7 and 2.2.5; group 4.1. (Methods of Control. Chemical factors). The fixed period is up to 28 April 2006.
- Federal Directorate of Medical, Biological and Extreme Problems at Russian Ministry of Health (MedBioExtreme). On the basis of Federal Law No. 52-FZ of 30 March 1999 dealing with sanitary and epidemiological health of population, the Directorate has issued certificate No. 002 of 24 September 2003. This certificate testifies that RINHTOP has the right to carry out sanitary and epidemiological appraisals, investigations, medical examinations, researches, testing, and toxicological and other types of estimations relating to special-purpose produce (goods). The fixed period is up to 24 September 2006. Russian State Sanitary and Epidemiological Surveillance (SSES). The Central Accreditation Body (CAB) of SSES laboratories has given certificate No. SSES RU. CAB/TAB 045.183. The text of the certificate states that the Laboratory of Occupational Health meets to the requirements of accreditation system acting within the SSES laboratories of Russia and is accredited. The areas of accreditation involve air quality in the work environment and indoor air quality (aerosols of fiber-producing action); noise, vibration, microclimate; non-ionizing electromagnetic fields and emissions; light factors; labor burden and intensity; and working area qualification. The fixed period is up to 14 February 2004.
- Russian State Municipal Technical Surveillance (The Administration of Lower Volga District). Certificate No. A45-01951 testifies that hazardous production facilities exploited by the RIHTOP have been registered in the state catalogue of occupationally hazardous objects in accordance with the Federal Law dealing with industrial safety of hazardous production facilities. The fixed period is up to 26 July 2007.
No less than 16 staff members of the Institute have been accredited by the Federal Directorate "MedBioExtreme" as experts in different disciplines:
- pre-clinical testing of potential medicinal preparations for prophylactics and management of poisonings by substances bringing the threat to human health;
- risk assessment of human health outcomes from exposure to chemical factors;
- development of databases and computer-based programs for medical purposes;
- hygienic rating of toxic agents and their destruction products in environmental objects;
- toxicological evaluation and hygienic rating of potentially hazardous chemicals for human beings, including industrial wastes such as chemical munitions destruction products and other extremely dangerous chemicals;
- hygienic evaluation of working conditions at chemical weapons demilitarization facilities and former chemical weapons production plants under conversion;
- hygienic evaluation of personal protection equipment used in chemical weapons destruction operations;
- sanitary and epidemiological qualification of project documentation relating to chemical munitions demilitarization facilities, technologies for safe conversion of former chemical weapons industries, as well as those employing extremely dangerous chemicals;
- evaluation of chemical munitions demilitarization-related influence on human health and the effects on the environment;
- carrying out the qualification of cause-and-effect relationships between workplace activities and illnesses at chemical stockpile disposal facilities;
- development and improvement of methods to analyze highly toxic substances, including toxic agents and products of their destruction found in different media;
- identification and quantitative determination of organic compounds, including toxic agents found in different media.
The Institute occupies a land space of 10.4 hectares, with 30 900 m2 allocated to buildings, 19 500 m2 to usable laboratory areas, and 8 900 m2 to vivarium.
Equipment and procedures:- Chemical and analytical equipment
- Computing equipment
- Biochemical analytical equipment
- Equipment for physiological investigation
- Experimental toxicology
- Information technologies and methodologies for health monitoring and risk assessment of chemical environment contamination for human health
- Pre- clinical testing of medicinal preparations
- Monitoring of personnel health at chemically hazardous industries, including people living in the vicinity of these plants.
ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE OF THE INSTITUTE
The Research Institute of Hygiene, Toxicology and Occupational Pathology, as a federal state unitary enterprise, is a logical part of the Federal Directorate of Medical, Biological and Extreme Problems under the command of the Ministry of Health, but is more or less a self-contained segment of this system.
Boris Nikolaevich Filatov, M.D., Ph.D. is director of the Institute.
- administrative and managerial divisions presented by well-coordinated system of departments such as assigned administration; personnel department; labor protection division; office; finance-and-economic planning department; entry-control service; maintenance and repair service; motor transport service; electrotechnical service and logistics department;
- scientific-research divisions (Laboratory of Occupational Health, Laboratory of Industrial Toxicology, Laboratory of Environmental Toxicology, Laboratory of Experimental Toxicology, Laboratory of Pathomorphology, Laboratory of Immunology, Clinical Department, Department of Chemistry and Laboratory of Information Technologies);
- scientific and auxiliary units ( scientific methods department; department of international projects; research information library; standardization and metrology department; department of inhalation exposures and animal clinics [vivarium]);
- service and supply center ( management; service station; and elecrotechnical shop).
COOPERATION WITH FOREIGN COMPANIES (NON-CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION)
Certain international contacts and experience gained by collaboration with foreign partners are available. Foreign financial support has been provided for the studies that are considered socially relevant. In order to strengthen this promising direction and improve international cooperation of the scientific divisions in a coordinated systemic way, a special unit - Department of International Projects - was arranged in July 2002.
Scientific potential of the Institute and promising directions of its development, as well as international market demand for intellectual produce have been decisive for priority setting in selecting the contents of international cooperation and foreign collaborators by joint projects. Thus, joint work is proceeding on medical and ecological subject matters through developing and introducing risk management systems aimed at mitigating the effects of probable mass injuries arising from industrial accidents at chemically dangerous production sites. Within a new trend of investigation that is already taking place nationally and internationally and that is associated with the threat of terrorism, the Institute has actively incorporated into the process of international cooperation - to develop countermeasures against chemical and biological terrorism.
Commanding the attention of foreign experts to the past activities of the Institute associated with various important medical provisions of chemical weapons production is still meaningful, and it works very well. The Institute, as a special autonomous research unit, is a useful Russian partner that may operate at different levels, national and provincial. For instance, it may compete for research grants, both individual and collective, offered by international and national funds of highly developed western countries, such as ISTC and CRDF. Another method is for the Institute to submit a proposal for research or applied designs that may provide an answer to a question framed by the foreign clients. Thirdly, the Institute may go directly to international market of the scientific produce with the proposal of competitive technologies and the advertisement of its unique capabilities in order to occupy and keep beneficial niches. These are the carrying-out of the research and the publication of the findings free from interference, the participation in international forums and exhibitions, and the involvement of its experts into international working groups.
From 2002, the Institute has been engaged in the following international projects. On the basis of the agreement with Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) on material support, the Institute and its branch company The South Center of Medical Aid at Chemical Accidents (SCMACA) were involved from 1997 to 1999 in a joint project. The purpose of this venture within the Programme on the Non-Proliferation of Mass Destruction Weapons (U.S. Department of Energy) was to create computer-based diagnostic tools for identification of poisonings (KAIF), which are of mutual benefit for both Russia and the USA. ISTC project No. 2345 on "Differential Diagnosis of OPC-produced acute poisonings" is presently under implementation. The collaborator of this project is Jeffrey I. Daniels, D. Env., who represents Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.
The long established contacts with UNEP Chemicals (United Nations Environment Program, International Register of Potentially Toxic Chemicals) continue to develop. International cooperation in this field is aimed at making available information on environmental toxicology knowledge among developing countries. The workshops and meetings organized by UNEP on the territory of Russia are of obligatory attendance for the Institute's experts as data contributors and providers of recommendations in the context of UNEP policies.
The project on the creation of communication system that is of crucial importance for the RIHTOP 's infrastructure is drawing to an end. On completion of start-up and adjustment period, the Institute would obtain a sure exit into the Internet, which will assure a free access through local nets to information resources worldwide and provide quick communication links with foreign partners. More updated information technologies, including that of telecommunication medicine, are in sight expected to apply with the introduction of the Communication Project. For this purpose, an operating room for rapid communication and conducting teleconferences is planned to equip through a substantial contribution from ISTC project No. 2733. Since 2002 the holding of international scientific symposia has been made possible based on scientific and organizational capabilities available at the Institute. Although this new and important line of activities in the field of development and harmonization of international information exchange demands competence and is time-consuming, it is thought to be very beneficial in sight. For instance, in collaboration with ISTC (project No. US WA-17), two international symposia on counterterrorism, and medical and biological aspects of chemical weapons stockpile demilitarization were held in Volgograd in October 2002 and in August 2003, respectively. Presently, ISTC has approved the financing of project No. 2340 related to pharmacological correction of trimethylphosphate-induced male reproductive function disturbances.
There is therefore an urgent need to obtain collective and individual grants from international public funds. The contacts with NAC/AEGL Committee should be continued in order to share its membership and present Russia, with subsequent opportunities of submitting research bids for joint grants from ISTC, CRDF, other U.S. organizations and Atlantic Logistic Inc. Thus, putting the KAIF program product on a commercial basis may be implemented with the CDRF financial support. Another method should be a closer cooperation with the LLNL, with securing the financial backing of the U.S.A. Department of Energy or other interested parties for the carrying-out of special researches.
Expected/Perspective partners: Pharmacological companies are the most preferable partners.
TopSCIENTIFIC STAFF AND ITS FRAME
The Institute has 280 members of staff. The number of scientific staff members is 45. Of this number, 4 have the scientific degree of M.D.; 17 - of Ph.D.