Gradient Principal Environmental Consultants

Tim Verslycke, Ph.D.

Dr. Verslycke has over 10 years of combined consulting and academic research experience in ecological risk assessment.  He has authored over 30 peer-reviewed journal articles and regularly speaks at scientific conferences on this and other topics.  His areas of expertise include evaluating environmental risks at contaminated sites, conducting environmental safety assessments of endocrine disruptors, pharmaceuticals and personal care products, pesticides, and other industrial chemicals, and regulatory ecotoxicity testing.  Dr. Verslycke also holds an academic position in the Biology Department at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (Woods Hole, MA).  He is currently a member of the SETAC Pharmaceutical Advisory Group Steering Committee and a board member of the SETAC North Atlantic Chapter.  He is also a former scientific advisor to the Center for Health and Environment of the Flanders Regional Government (Belgium) and a former member of the scientific committee of the Flanders Marine Institute (VLIZ, Belgium). 

Representative Projects

Site Environmental Risk Assessments: At the request of different companies, performed a site-specific environmental risk assessment of their manufacturing facilities, compliant with the requirements of the respective state environmental agencies and with US EPA requirements. 

Pharmaceutical Environmental Risk Assessments: For pharmaceutical companies, evaluated the environmental risk associated with the societal use of their products, compliant with either European or US risk assessment guidelines. 

Pharmaceutical Safety Screening: At the request of pharmaceutical companies, developed environmental risk assessment screening protocols for their active pharmaceutical ingredients (API). 

Pharmaceutical Assay Development: At the request of a pharmaceutical company, developed a targeted in vitro screening assay to evaluate the potential estrogenicity of their products.

Pesticide Assay Development: For the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Sea Grant program, developed in vitro assays to evaluate the presence and potential effects of pesticides in Cape Cod coastal waters.

Endocrine Disruptor Assay Development: Developed and validated acute and chronic assays for the screening and testing of potential endocrine disruptors using mysid shrimp.  Mysid shrimp are currently the only invertebrate model included in US EPA's Endocrine Disruptor Screening Program.  This work has been funded through doctoral and postdoctoral fellowships from the Institute for the Promotion of Innovation by Science and Technology in Flanders, the Belgian American Educational Foundation, and WHOI’s Ocean Life Institute.

Endis-Risks: At the request of the Belgian Federal Science Policy Office, Endis-Risks assessed the distribution and effects of endocrine-disrupting substances in the Scheldt estuary in The Netherlands (http://www.vliz.be/projects/endis/).

ED-NORTH: For the Belgian Federal Science Policy Office, prepared of a scientific review and proposals for policy guidance which can be used for formulating governmental management decisions that will help to structure future action plans to tackle the possible impacts of endocrine disruptors on the North Sea. 






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