Dr Richard Evans
Postdoctoral Research Fellow
Brunel University
Uxbridge
UB8 3PH
United Kingdom
About Richard
After completing a B.Sc. (2000) in Pharmacology and Toxicology at the School of Pharmacy, University of London, I carried out a Ph.D. (2004) at King’s College, London in experimental research relating to multiple sclerosis (MS), followed by a postdoctoral project at University College London on motor neuron disease. Subsequently I have returned to toxicology research in the group of Prof. Andreas Kortenkamp at the Centre for Toxicology, School of Pharmacy, and Brunel University.
My initial laboratory research into the in vitro effects of chemical mixtures of estrogenic compounds (funded by UK Food Standards Agency (FSA)) has been followed by projects including a state of the art report on assessment of endocrine disruptors (funded by the European Commission), and a current project to propose a science-based approach to the cumulative risk assessment (CRA) of dissimilarly acting chemicals (funded by the European Food Standards Authority (EFSA)).
Qualifications
PhD “Pathogenesis and therapy of inflammatory demyelinating diseases”, 2004
BSc Toxicology and Pharmacology, 2000.
I am a member of the British Computer Society (MBCS) and the International Society for Computational Biology (ISCB).
Career
2007-current, Research Fellow, School of Pharmacy, University of London
2007: In vitro effects of mixtures of estrogenic chemicals (UK Food Standards Agency)
2010: State of the art report: assessment of endocrine disruptors (European Commission)
2011: State of the science and proposal for cumulative risk assessment of dissimilarly acting chemicals (European Food Standards Authority, EFSA)
2006-2007, Research Fellow, University College London Analysis of expression of mRNA splice variants in human muscle in motor neuron disease (MND, or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS)) and in vitro studies of 3D muscle constructs
2004-2006, Research Fellow, King’s College London Mechanisms of axonal degeneration in inflammatory demyelinating diseases, such as Multiple Sclerosis (MS)
Research
Research Interests
Research Activity
My research focuses on endocrine disruption and the toxicology of chemical mixtures, and on cumulative risk assessment (CRA), a complementary area of regulatory toxicology.
I am particularly interested in computational toxicology, especially the use of bioinformatics and systems biology in toxicology, including the use of text mining for literature analysis. I develop computer software to perform literature and bioinformatic analyses, and I am especially interested in developing software that is useful for mixture toxicology, for example software that is able to handle tens or hundreds of chemicals in parallel and provide meaningful integration and profiling of the data. I am also using the R/Bioconductor programming environment, to develop an analysis ‘pipeline’ for data from Affymetrix microarrays in a project looking at the transcriptomic effects of chemical mixtures.
I have a long-standing interest in neurological diseases, from my PhD and postdoctoral research into two human diseases, multiple sclerosis (MS) and motor neuron disease (MND, also known as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS)). I am interested in the possible role that chemical mixtures may play in the aetiology of these, and similar, conditions.
Publications
Articles and book chapters
Flecainide therapy for axonal degeneration in experimental autoimmune neuritis
D.A. Bechtold, X. Yue, R.M. Evans, M. Davies, N.A. Gregson, K.J. Smith
Brain, 2005, 128:18-28.
Multiple Sclerosis: effects of immune mediators on neurophysiological function
R.M. Evans and K.J. Smith
In Clinical Neuroimmunology, second edition; edited by J. Antel, H-P. Hartung and G. Birnbaum, Oxford University Press, October 2005.
Investigation of MGF mRNA expression in patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis using parallel in vivo and in vitro approaches
R.M. Evans, S.D.R. Harridge, C.P. Velloso, S.Yang, G. Goldspink, R. W. Orrell
Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, 2010, 11(1-2):172-7.
Inability to confirm estrogenicity of the heterocyclic amine PhIP in two in vitro assays
R.M. Evans, S. Rahte and A. Kortenkamp
Toxicology In Vitro, 2010, 24: 1757-1763.
ScoreCentre: a computer program to assist with collection and calculation of BBB locomotor scale data.
R.M. Evans and M. Davies
Journal of Neuroscience Methods, Available online 7 October 2010
Naturally occurring oestrogens
O. Martin, R.M. Evans and J. Plant
In Pollutants, Human Health and the Environment; edited by Plant, Ragnarsdottir and Voulvoulis, Wiley, publication due December 2011.
Conference abstracts
Nitric oxide-mediated conduction block: specific roles for nitrosothiols? (abstract selected for platform presentation)
R.M. Evans, D.A. Bechtold & K.J. Smith
Journal of the Peripheral Nervous System 8(suppl. 1): 14 (2003)
Effect of MAPK/ERK or PI3K pathway inhibition on the response to estrogens in the ERLUX (T47D-KBluc) assay: indications for classical and non-genomic actions of the estrogen receptor?
R.M. Evans & A. Kortenkamp
Gordon Research Conference on Environmental Endocrine Disruptors; Waterville, USA, June 2008
