In the Spotlight Archives

Test Method Validation and Regulatory Acceptance 2009: What’s in the Pipeline at JaCVAM

Friday, March 5, 2010
Up-to-date summary of validation and regulatory acceptance activities at the Japanese Center for the Validation of Alternative Methods.

Report on the 22nd Annual Meeting of the JSAAE

Monday, December 21, 2009
The following is a report on the 22nd Annual Meeting of the Japanese Society for Alternatives to Animal Experiments (JSAAE) which was held November 13-15, 2009, at Osaka University in Osaka, Japan

NAS Workshop on Computational Toxicology

Friday, October 23, 2009
The NAS Committee on Emerging Science for Environmental Health Decisions held a workshop in late September on computational toxicology, the application of high-level computing power as a means of managing and detecting patterns and interactions in large biological data sets.

Implementation of the NICEATM-ICCVAM Five-Year Plan

Tuesday, July 28, 2009
The National Toxicology Program Interagency Center for the Evaluation of Alternative Toxicological Methods and the Interagency Coordinating Committee on the Validation of Alternative Methods released their Draft Implementation Plan for the NICEATM-ICCVAM Five -Year Plan. It was discussed at the June 25-26, 2009 meeting of the Scientific Advisory Committee on Alternative Toxicological Methods.

Still Looking for a Validated In Vitro Eye Test

Thursday, June 4, 2009
The March 11 EU animal test ban was another reminder of the long-standing need for a validated non-animal method to replace the Draize rabbit eye test. ECVAM and ICCVAM recently conducted scientific reviews on a number of in vitro ocular test methods. Final recommendations are pending, however, it appears several methods will be recommended as valid for identifying non-irritants.

7th World Congress - Animal Alternative’s Premier 2009 Event

Tuesday, March 31, 2009
The World Congresses on Alternatives & Animal Use in the Life Sciences have attracted a large international group of stakeholders and leading experts interested in scientific approaches to the development and use of methods that replace, reduce, and/or refine (the 3Rs) animal-based laboratory methods.

AltTox at the One-Year Mark: A Users Guide

Friday, January 30, 2009
AltTox.org reached its first anniversary last month; the one-year mark is a good time to survey AltTox's features, both as a review for dedicated users and as an introduction for newcomers.

North American Alternative Awards Announced

Friday, December 19, 2008
The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) and The Procter & Gamble (P&G) Company bestowed the North American Alternative Awards on Dec. 18 for outstanding scientific contributions to the advancement of viable alternatives to animal testing.

Test Method Validation: What's in the Pipeline for 2008

Friday, November 14, 2008
An up-to-date summary of new or revised toxicity test methods that are currently in some stage of assessment of their scientific validity for regulatory testing applications and being coordinated or conducted by ICCVAM, ECVAM or JaCVAM.

EFSA Releases Expert Opinion on Marine Biotoxin Testing

Thursday, October 23, 2008
The European Food Safety Authority released a report from the scientific panel evaluating the safety testing for Azaspiracid shellfish biotoxins (AZAs), which concludes that an analytical method is a potential replacement for the animal test method currently required by the EU regulatory authorities.

Workshop on the Use of Histopathology for In Vitro BCOP Eye Irritation Studies

Wednesday, September 17, 2008
IIVS has been the leader in using histology to expand the usefulness of the Bovine Cornea Opacity and Permeability (BCOP) assay for more than ten years. In response to an ICCVAM recommendation to "conduct histopathological evaluation of the corneal tissue", IIVS held a Workshop on the Use of Histopahtology in In Vitro BCOP Eyey Irritation Studies...

Human protein assay developed as an alternative to the mouse LD50 assay for shellfish toxin

Wednesday, August 20, 2008
The testing of biologicals represents a large segment of the animals used in toxicity testing. Much of this testing involves the mouse bioassay where the endpoint is 50% lethality (LD50). But scientists have developed a method for drug and toxin testing using a recombinant human skeletal muscle protein that provides a potential alternative to the mouse LD50 assay...

Highlights from the 13th International Workshop on Quantitative Structure-Activity Relationships (QSARs)

Monday, July 7, 2008
AltTox invited Dr. Grace Patlewicz, from the DuPont Company, to provide a brief summary of some of the highlights from the 13th International Workshop on Quantitative Structure-Activity Relationships (QSARs) in the Environmental Sciences...

Thomas Hartung Leaving ECVAM

Thursday, May 15, 2008
Dr. Thomas Hartung, Head of the European Centre for the Validation of Alternative Methods (ECVAM) since 2002, will be moving to a new position within the European Commission effective May 1. The announcement came as a surprise to some observers, in light of the many achievements of ECVAM...

New Internet Search Engine for 3R’s Methods: Go3R.org

Monday, April 21, 2008
Go3R.org is a new internet search engine specifically developed for locating information on replacement, reduction, and refinement alternative methods. Find out how this new website can advance our goal of replacing animals in toxicity testing.

Federal Agencies Collaborate on New High Throughput Toxicity Screening Initiative

Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Will the robotic, high-throughput type of molecular data acquisition that led to the expedited sequencing of the human genome now conquer another major scientific challenge of our time?

New Technologies Applied to the Study of an Old Toxin - Arsenic

Monday, February 4, 2008
Toxicogenomics Suggests Mechanism for Cancer Risk from Prenatal Exposure to Arsenic

A recent study found that human maternal exposure to arsenic results in substantial gene expression changes in the newborns...

Don't Overlook the AltTox.org "Way Forward" Commentaries

Thursday, December 6, 2007
Readers navigating AltTox.org for the first time will quickly realize that the bulk of the website is divided into two sections...