BioCentury
ARTICLE | Tools & Techniques

Animal detox

NIH's Tox21 program reports progress on eliminating animal testing

February 11, 2016 8:00 AM UTC

NIH's National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS) has picked up the gauntlet thrown down by NIH, FDA and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) through the Tox21 program, and is working to createassays robust enough to eliminate animals from early screens in toxicology. Its evidence suggests computer modeling and in vitro assays track better with human than animal outcomes, but without opening the vaults of clinical data, it will be all but impossible to reach the finish line.

The Toxicology in the 21st Century (Tox21) program was launched in 2008 not only to reduce unnecessary use of animals, but to find better and faster ways of predicting which chemicals and drug development candidates might be toxic, because animal results translate so poorly to humans. ...