In the Spotlight Archives

Last Updated: April 10, 2012

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The Future of Systemic Toxicity Testing: Animal-free

Wednesday, May 9, 2012
A review of the recent meeting to discuss a "scientific roadmap for the future of animal-free systemic toxicity testing," which was sponsored by CAAT-EU.

The US EPA's Endocrine Disruptor Screening Program: Part 1

Tuesday, April 10, 2012
This article reviews the history of the EPA's EDSP program as well as the current program and related activities. The most recent EPA announcement of test order results and enforcement actions under the EDSP will be examined.

Council of Canadian Academies Releases an Expert Panel Report on the Adoption of Integrated Strategies in Chemical Assessment

Tuesday, February 7, 2012
In response to a request by the Minister of Health, the Council of Canadian Academies brought together experts to better understand the challenges and opportunities related to chemical testing and regulation. They have now released a report on the scientific status of the use of integrated testing strategies in the regulatory risk assessment of pesticides.

Open Innovation, Part II: Using Web 2.0 Technologies to Connect Innovation Partners

Friday, January 13, 2012
Part II of our introduction to open innovation (OI) describes several new and established OI service providers as well as opportunities and challenges in using these internet platforms. OI partnerships are one approach that could be useful in moving new non-animal methodologies more quickly from the lab to the marketplace.

Open Innovation Part I: The NC3Rs Programme CRACK IT

Friday, November 4, 2011
CRACK IT Challenges is a new research funding program launched by The NC3Rs. The CRACK IT website provides an open innovation platform where industry (and other researchers) can find collaborative partners and solutions for technological and methodological challenges "which if solved will lead to improvements in animal welfare or reduced reliance on animal research."

U.S. Agencies Working Collaboratively to Develop Novel Human Cell Platform for Drug Safety Testing

Friday, September 30, 2011
The US Department of Defense, along with the US National Institutes of Health and the US Food and Drug Administration, are working to develop an innovative new technology that will use engineered human tissues to predict the efficacy and safety of new drugs and vaccines.

Awards Bestowed at the Eighth World Congress on Alternatives

Thursday, September 8, 2011
We provide a brief summary of the awards presented at last month’s Eighth World Congress on Alternatives and Animal Use in the Life Sciences in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.

Symposium Highlights Emerging Role of 3D Tissue Modeling in EHS

Tuesday, August 30, 2011
Environmental Health Factor provides a summary of the recent workshop "Engineered Tissue Models for Environmental Health Sciences Research" held June 27, 2011 in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina.

Proceedings from the 8th Congress of KSAAE

Monday, August 1, 2011
The 8th Congress of the Korean Society for Alternatives to Animal Experiments (KSAAE) was held on July 8, 2011 at Hoseo University, South Korea. Three presentations that describe research and developments of alternative test methods in Korea, Japan, and China have been reproduced.

8th World Congress Update

Tuesday, June 28, 2011
The 8^th World Congress on Alternatives and Animal Use in the Life Sciences (WC8) will be taking place from August 21-25, 2011 in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. CCAC, the host for the WC8, would like to remind attendees to take advantage of the reduced early bird registration fee by registering on or before June 30.

EPA's New Chemical Safety for Sustainability Research Program

Wednesday, May 25, 2011
As part of the EPA's FY2012 budget, a plan for progress was proposed to better protect "our health and environment." A portion of this plan is the new Chemical Safety for Sustainability (CSS) Research Program, which realigns the EPA's existing 12 research programs into four new "sustainability themes".

TT21C Introduced to Chinese Scientists at Unilever Symposium

Wednesday, April 27, 2011
Dr. Paul Carmichael recaps the recent Unilever-organised symposium in Shanghai aimed at introducing "Toxicity Testing in the 21st Century" to Chinese scientists and government officials.

European Government-Industry Project Aims to Develop Non-animal Alternatives for Repeated Dose Systemic Toxicity Testing

Tuesday, March 29, 2011
As one of the many types of toxicity testing required by regulatory agencies, repeated dose systemic toxicity testing does not yet have a validated non-animal alternative test available. With the European Union's Cosmetics Directive 2013 deadline to ban animal testing fast approaching, a new European Commission-Industry research project aims to get one in place.

Adverse Outcome Pathways and Their Role in Helping to Formulate Mechanistically Relevant Chemical Categories

Friday, March 4, 2011
Terry Schultz & Bob Diderich from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development talk about adverse outcome pathways (AOPs) and what was discussed about their role in mechanistically relevant chemical categories at their recent workshop in December.

8^th World Congress on Alternatives and Animal Use in the Life Sciences: Registration and Abstract Submission Now Open on the WC8 Website

Friday, January 28, 2011
The 8^th World Congress (WC8), "The Three Rs, Together It's Possible," will take place in Montreal from August 21-25, 2011. Hosted by the Canadian Council on Animal Care, the international scientific conference is dedicated to the replacement, reduction, and refinement of animal use in research, teaching and safety testing.

Key Milestone Achieved for the OECD Extended One-Generation Reproductive Toxicity Study Test Guideline

Tuesday, January 4, 2011
The draft Extended One-Generation Reproductive Toxicity Study (EOGRTS) test guideline has taken one step forward towards gaining official adoption by the OECD council. The test will reduce and refine animal use in reproductive and developmental toxicity testing.

2010 In Vitro Alternatives Forum Held in Old Town Alexandria, Virginia, USA

Wednesday, December 8, 2010
The third In Vitro Alternatives Forum was held on October 18-19, 2010. Scientists from industry, academia, regulatory agencies and animal protection attended. The program addressed four main topics: new regulatory chemical testing issues, advances in assessing skin sensitizers, the use of three-dimensional tissue models, and several new and innovative commercially available technologies.

Accelerating the National Research Council "Vision" for 21st Century Toxicology

Monday, November 29, 2010
The Human Toxicology Project Consortium held a workshop on "Accelerating Implementation of the NRC Vision for Toxicity Testing in the 21st Century" on November 9-10, 2010, in Washington, DC. The Consortium has proposed a human genome-type project as the mechanism for implementing the NRC vision.

Second International Lhasa Limited Symposium - New Horizons in Toxicity Prediction

Friday, October 29, 2010
The Second International Lhasa Symposium, New Horizons in Toxicity Prediction, was held at the Leeds Royal Armouries Museum in Leeds, UK from September 15-16, 2010. The 120 attendees heard from fourteen speakers who discussed research and ideas on "the future of toxicity prediction".

Skin Sensitization: Moving Towards a Validated In Vitro Test

Tuesday, September 7, 2010
In response to the burgeoning development of in vitro skin sensitization methods to satisfy REACH requirements, the Institute for In Vitro Sciences is hosting the 2010 In Vitro Alternatives Forum with a special emphasis on integrated testing strategies to identify skin sensitizers. Learn more from one of the organizers, Dr. Frank Gerberick of the Procter & Gamble Company.

Workshop Summary: Integrating New Advances in Exposure Science and Toxicity Testing - Next Steps

Wednesday, August 11, 2010
This article summarizes the workshop held on June 16 and 17, 2010 in Stresa, Italy and organized by the International Council of Chemical Associations and the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre.

Molecular Libraries Initiative: Application to Tox21 and the NIH Chemical Genomics Center

Monday, August 2, 2010
The Molecular Libraries Initiative (MLI) was established to provide researchers the tools and infrastructure to identify chemical probes for exploring biological pathways and provide a starting point for drug discovery.

EPA Opens Access to New Toxicity Database

Tuesday, June 22, 2010
The EPA recently announced the public availability of a new database of toxicity information. ToxRefDB contains the results of nearly two billion dollars worth of traditional in vivo animal toxicity studies conducted over the last thirty years.

Test Method Validation and Regulatory Acceptance 2009: ECVAM

Thursday, May 20, 2010
A summary of validation and regulatory acceptance activities at the European Centre for the Validation of Alternative Methods during 2009.

New EU Initiative to 'AXLR8' Research in Toxicology toward a Pathway-Based Paradigm

Monday, April 26, 2010
The European Commission’s Research Directorate General is funding a new initiative termed AXLR8 ('accelerate') for the purpose of monitoring European Union FP6/FP7-funded 3Rs research activities and related international initiatives with the aim of accelerating the transition to a toxicity pathway-based paradigm for chemical safety assessment.

The Mouse Embryonic Stem Cell Test: Technical Challenges and Recent Advances

Wednesday, April 21, 2010
The practicality of in vivo tests for reproductive toxicity has been the subject of much recent discussion. Besides an interest in reducing animal use for ethical concerns, this has been driven by the massive number of chemicals subject to REACH legislation and a general desire to develop a more predictive paradigm for toxicity testing that includes more in vitro models and computational approach.

2009 NICEATM-ICCVAM Activity: Test Method Validation and Regulatory Acceptance in the US

Tuesday, March 30, 2010
A summary of activities at the US-based National Toxicology Program (NTP) Interagency Center for the Evaluation of Alternative Toxicological Methods-Interagency Coordinating Committee on the Validation of Alternative Methods (NICEATM-ICCVAM), this article is the second in a series on validation and regulatory acceptance activities that took place in 2009 at three national validation centers.

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 1st KoCVAM International Symposium and 6th Congress of the KSAAE

Tuesday, January 19, 2010
The Korean Center for the Validation of Alternative Methods (KoCVAM) was recently established in South Korea as part of the National Institute of Food and Drug Safety (NIFDS) in the Korean Food and Drug Administration. An inaugural KoCVAM International Symposium was convened to recognize the formal establishment of KoCVAM.

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

Photos from the 7th World Congress on Alternatives

Tuesday, December 1, 2009
Check out our slideshow of the 7th World Congress on Alternatives and Animal Use in the Life Sciences, held in Rome, Italy on August 30 to September 3, 2009.

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.

NAS Holds Workshop on Use of Emerging Science and Technologies to Explore Epigenetic Mechanisms Underlying the Developmental Basis for Disease

Friday, September 18, 2009
The NAS held a workshop on July 30-31 to evaluate the state of the science of epigenetics, with particular attention to understanding whether it is a significant contributor to a number of human diseases.

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.

Alternatives to Animal Testing Recommendations from the European Food Safety Authority

Friday, June 26, 2009
The Scientific Committee of the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) released its scientific opinion report “Existing approaches incorporating replacement, reduction and refinement of animal testing: applicability in food and feed risk assessment” on June 9, 2009.

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.

US EPA Adopts Strategic Plan for Evaluating the Toxicity of Chemicals

Monday, April 27, 2009
Last month, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released the final version of its new strategic plan, The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Strategic Plan for Evaluating the Toxicity of Chemicals. AltTox.org would like to provide our users with additional information on the Plan as well as encourage discussion of this topic in the forums.

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.

ACC’s Long-Range Research Initiative and the Future of Chemical Risk Assessment

Monday, March 2, 2009
The American Chemistry Council announced the release of the Long-Range Research Initiative’s updated guidance document, the LRI Research Strategy 2009-2015. The strategy is part of the chemical industry’s approach to developing improved methods for determining chemical risks "better, faster, and cheaper."

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.

ACToR: New Chemical Database from the EPA

Tuesday, January 6, 2009
A free, publicly-accessible database that provides chemical information collected from over 200 diverse sources is now available. ACToR (Aggregated Computational Toxicology Resource) was developed by the US Environmental Protection Agency's National Center for Computational Toxicology.

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.

Meeting Report: TestSmart's DNT2

Wednesday, December 17, 2008
By Jan van der Valk

Over 80 scientists from industry, government and academia participated in the TestSmart Developmental Neurotoxicity Testing 2 Conference November 12-14.

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.

NTP Holds Meeting on High-Throughput Screening

Thursday, November 13, 2008
The National Toxicology Program (NTP) took an important step forward in the development of a more rigorous and comprehensive high-throughput screening program for toxicology studies by hosting a Request for Information (RFI) meeting September 11-12 in Rodbell Auditorium at NIEHS.

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.

Q&A with Rodger Curren on IIVS/ARDF Alternatives Forum: Spotlight on Ingredients

Wednesday, October 1, 2008
Read AltTox's interview with IIVS President Rodger Curren about the aims of their "2008 Alternatives Forum: Spotlight on Ingredients" being held October 23-24, 2008 in Philadelphia, PA...

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...

AltTox Forums More User Friendly

Friday, September 5, 2008
The AltTox Management Team is pleased to announce a number of user-friendly changes to our interactive forums-the bulletin boards/discussion platforms for stakeholders interested in non-animal methods for toxicity testing...

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...

Cell-based Assays and their Role in the Future of Toxicity Testing: Part I

Friday, July 18, 2008
Last year marked the 100th anniversary of a major scientific milestone, the development of cell culture as a research tool. Read more on the amazing progress of cell-based studies in toxicity testing...

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...

New EU Regulation and Streamlined Acceptance Procedures for Testing Methods

Wednesday, May 28, 2008
On 22 May 2008, the European Parliament endorsed, by overwhelming majority, a resolution chastising EU regulators for moving too slowly to accept 3Rs methods that have been endorsed as scientifically valid by the ECVAM Scientific Advisory Committee (ESAC), and calling for significant changes to European Commission internal procedures...

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...

PPP: Perspectives in Percutaneous Penetration

Wednesday, May 7, 2008
AltTox invited Dr. William Dressler to provide a summary of the 11th International Conference on Perspectives in Percutaneous Penetration (PPP). Bill's report illustrates the wide usage of in vitro percutaneous penetration methods to satisfy regulatory and informational needs using a variety of protocols.

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.

Cell-based Microfluidic Devices for Toxicity Testing

Friday, March 28, 2008
Technological advances led by achievements in microfabrication and tissue engineering have provided the tools needed to create microscale devices for conducting many types of laboratory assays...

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?

ICCVAM Unveils Eagerly Awaited 5-Year Plan

Wednesday, February 20, 2008
The Interagency Coordinating Committee on the Validation of Alternative Methods (ICCVAM) released its long awaited five year plan at its 10th anniversary symposium on February 5th. It identifies four priority areas for alternatives test method development...

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...

Have You Visited AltTox.org's Informational Resources?

Wednesday, January 9, 2008
AltTox.org provides a helpful collection of links to online resources for researchers and others interested in non-animal methods for toxicity testing. These links point to specific websites, publications, organizations, databases, and other sources of online information.

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...

Why a Website Devoted to Non-animal Methods for Toxicity Testing?

Thursday, December 6, 2007
There are clear signs that toxicity testing is in the early stages of a paradigm shift away from a reliance on in vivo methods and towards the use of non-animal methods...