Extending university expertise in toxicology and risk-assessment to decision-makers, corporations and the general public as well as developing undergraduate-level education programs in environmental toxicology are among the priorities for the new director of Cornell University's Institute for Comparative and Environmental Toxicology (ICET), David B. Wilson.

Wilson, a professor of biochemistry, molecular and cell biology, became director of the program in Cornell's Center for the Environment on Sept. 1, replacing Rodney R. Dietert, director since 1992. Dietert continues as one of the 40 faculty members of ICET and as a professor of immunogenetics in the College of Veterinary Medicine.

Spanning 22 academic departments in five Cornell colleges, ICET comprises faculty expertise in areas such as environmental law and public policy, nutritional toxicology and food safety, bioremediation and environmental engineering, and biomedical toxicology. ICET administers the Cornell Superfund Basic Research and Education Grant program and a National Institute for Environmental Health Sciences Training Grant, and is the base for the Cornell University Program on Breast Cancer and Environmental Risk Factors in New York state (BCERF).

"BCERF is a perfect model for what we would like to establish in other areas of concern among the population -- areas where there is a need to gather and interpret the facts by an honest broker that can be trusted by all sides," Wilson said. "There are many opportunities to expand this role," Wilson said, offering ICET's research and analysis capabilities to policy-makers on the state and federal level, to corporations and even to the university. "Toxicology is ideally situated to deal with concerns that are arising at this time, and with such a wide range of expertise to call upon for complex issues, ICET is the ultimate interdisciplinary program."

ICET also does its part to help Cornell fulfill the land-grant university mission, Wilson said, by organizing periodic symposia, such as the Sept. 29-30 program, "Science that Drives Policy: Pesticides, Diet and Breast Cancer Risk."

And ICET's education function will be more comprehensive, the new director said, if the institute can develop an undergraduate concentration in toxicology at Cornell. That program would build on Cornell's first-ever undergraduate course in environmental toxicology, which began last year, and would fill a real need, Wilson said, "because as citizens we all should understand the issues of toxicology and risk assessment so that we can focus society's energy on dealing with the real problems."

However, undergraduate curriculum development must not detract from ICET's efforts in the Graduate Field of Environmental Toxicology, which Wilson called rich in talent but impoverished in financial resources. "Cornell has been extremely successful in attracting high-quality students in toxicology," Wilson said, "but we don't have resources to support many of them."

One support source with room to grow is ICET's corporate affiliates program, the new director said. Membership fees from corporations help toxicology graduate students attend professional conferences and supplement other educational functions of the institute. In return, corporations with a long-range perspective benefit from the better-educated graduates who enter their field.

Wilson joined the Cornell faculty as an assistant professor of biochemistry in 1967 after earning an A.B. (1961) at Harvard University, a Ph.D. (1966) at Stanford University and completing a postdoctoral fellowship (1966-67) at Johns Hopkins University, all in biochemistry. He was appointed as a professor of biochemistry, molecular and cell biology in 1984.

Wilson's research in the field of environmental toxicology focuses on developing new bioremediation technologies, such as a system for concentrating, removing and recycling heavy metal contaminants in soils and water with genetically engineered bacteria operating in bioreactors. That technology has been demonstrated in the laboratory for removing mercury, Wilson reported, and now awaits field trails.