Reducing, Refining and Replacing the Use of Animals in Toxicity Testing

Dave Allen, Mike D Waters

• Publisher: Royal Society of Chemistry
• Year: 2013
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9781849737920
• Topic: Biological Sciences
• Subtopic: Biochemistry
• Index: Biological Sciences

Toxicity testing is used to assess the safety or hazards presented by substances such as industrial chemicals, consumer products, and pharmaceuticals. At present, many methods involve laboratory animals. Alternative procedures, some involving human cell-based technologies, are now being developed which reduce, refine, or replace animal usage and minimize the pain and distress caused. These new tests must protect public health and the environment at least as well as currently accepted methods. This book describes the ever-expanding "toolbox" of methods available to assess toxicity. Such techniques often result from our growing understanding of the biochemical and cellular pathways that mediate toxicity mechanisms. This permits evaluations of information generated from several sources to generate a "weight of evidence". By combining in silico, in vitro, and ex vivo methods with technologies that rely on biochemical- and cell-based in vitro assays, toxicologists are developing mechanistically based alternatives to live animal experimentation. This text also explores the complexities associated with adequate validation, and the assessment of test reliability and relevance. It provides an essential reference source for postgraduates, academics and industrialists working in this rapidly changing area.

Table of contents

• Reducing, Refining and Replacing the Use of Animals in Toxicity Testing
• Contents
• Chapter 1 History of the 3Rs in Toxicity Testing: From Russell and Burch to 21st Century Toxicology
• Chapter 2 Regulatory Testing To Inform Decisions: National and International Requirements
• Chapter 3 Efforts Towards International Harmonization of Acceptable Alternatives to Animal Testing
• Chapter 4 Refinement Alternatives Minimizing Pain and Distress in In vivo Toxicity Testing
• Chapter 5 Computers Instead of Cells: Computational Modeling of Chemical Toxicity
• Chapter 6 Acute Systemic Toxicity: Oral, Dermal and Inhalation Exposures
• Chapter 7 In Vitro toxicology Models for Acute eye and skin Irritation Assessment
• Chapter 8 Skin Sensitization Testing
• Chapter 9 Integrated Approaches to Safety Testing: General Principles and Skin Sensitization as Test Case
• Chapter 10 In Vitro Receptor Binding Assays
• Chapter 11 Carcinogenicity Testing
• Chapter 12 Reproductive and Developmental Toxicity Testing: Issues for 3Rs Implementation
• Subject Index