Benchmark Dose Tools Suite
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Benchmark Dose Tools
- BMDS Online is the U.S. EPA’s primary application for benchmark dose-response modeling. All a user needs to run a BMD analysis is an internet connection. The BMDS Online application does not track personal information about users of the software. BMDS Online will save datasets and analyses for three years. However, if data sensitivity is an issue, BMDS Desktop or pybmds should be used for offline analysis.
- BMDS Desktop & pybmds: Python-based versions of BMDS Online that enable offline analysis. Both applications require installing Python on the user's workstation.
- BMDS Desktop is a Python-based version of BMDS Online that runs offline in a web browser and replaces the Excel-based BMDS application. It is intended for users with increased data privacy or sensitivity concerns that prevent them from running BMD analyses on EPA infrastructure.
- pybmds enables users to run dose-response analyses in a scripting environment, along with running high-throughput or batch analyses of thousands of individual datasets. pybmds is a command-line application and is intended for the advanced user with some development experience.
- CatReg (Categorical Regression Analysis application) complements BMDS by greatly enhancing a risk assessor’s ability to determine whether data from separate toxicological or epidemiological studies can be pooled into a single dose-response-time meta-analysis. CatReg can be used to support the analysis of health effect studies and other types of toxicity data used to support toxicity assessments developed by EPA and other interested stakeholders.
Previous BMDS Versions
The following versions of BMDS are no longer updated by US EPA. They are provided for historic and reference purposes.
- BMDS 2.7 for Windows includes several models that are no longer updated and so were not included in later versions of the software.
- BMDS 3.3.2 for Excel used the familiar spreadsheet interface for running analyses, but its macro-based framework hindered its uptake in some organizations.