Upcoming Events
MAY
Scientific Roadmap for the Future of Animal-free Systemic Toxicity Testing
May 30-31, 2013
US FDA, College Park, Md.
Registration is now open for a May workshop on a "Scientific Roadmap for the Future of Animal-free Systemic Toxicity Testing," to be held in College Park, Md. Presentations and discussions will address the way forward as outlined in "A roadmap for the development of alternatives (non-animal) methods for systemic toxicity testing," by Basketter, et al. in ALTEX (PDF). This workshop is hosted by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and organized by the Johns Hopkins Center for Alternatives to Animal Testing and an organizing committee that included the ASCCT Board of Directors. The forum is modeled on one held in Brussels in March 2012 and attended by some 150 experts. The College Park event is free but preregistration is required. More information is available at http://altweb.jhsph.edu/news/2012/roadmap.htm.
JUNE
53rd Annual Meeting of the Teratology Society
June 22-26, 2013
Tucson, Arizona
Abstracts are due Feb. 15. More >
Second Annual Meeting of the ASCCT
The Future is Here: Practical Application of Emerging Scientific Tools
Oct. 31, 2013, Bethesda, Md.
Lister Hill Auditorium, NLM, NIH
- Invited plenaries by Donald E. Ingber, Harvard University, and Thomas Knudsen, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
- Panel discussion
- Poster session and talks selected from submitted abstracts
- Reception
Mark your calendars for the second annual ASCCT meeting this fall. Click here to view a draft agenda. Abstract submission deadline is Aug. 31. Click here for more details including registration and abstract submission information.
Past Events
Webinar on Using the Adverse Outcome Pathway Framework as a Guide for the Development of High-Throughput Screening Assays for Thyroid-Disrupting Chemicals
Disruption of thyroid hormones (THs) adversely affects neurodevelopment in both rodent models and humans. Therefore it is critical to determine the potential thyroid-disrupting activity of environmentally relevant chemicals, but the complexity of thyroid hormone regulation necessitates screening assays for multiple molecular initiating events that are not currently associated with any screening assays. Katie B. Paul, Ph.D., Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, discussed the system of adverse outcome pathways for thyroid disruption, the development of a high-throughput screening assay for the detection of thyroperoxidase inhibitors, and future thyroid-disruptor screening challenges and potential approaches. Click here to access the webinar.
Webinar on Human Induced Pluripotent Stem Cell-derived Model System
Induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC) can be differentiated to almost any cell type, and have the potential to help bridge the gap between in chemico or receptor-based in vitro assays and organ toxicities in the adverse outcome pathway framework. Dr. Maureen Bunger from Cellular Dynamics International presented the process of reprogramming adult cells to create iPSCs and subsequent directed differentiation and purification of multiple cell lineages, and provided examples of their utility in vitro toxicity testing. Click here to access the webinar.
First Annual Scientific and Business Meeting of the ASCCT
The first annual ASCCT meeting focused on advances in the fields of in vitro and computational toxicology. Dr. Melvin Andersen, associate director of The Institute for Chemical Safety Sciences at The Hamner Institutes for Health Sciences and ASCCT board member, gave a plenary lecture on Computational Cellular Pathway Modeling: Combining Key In Vitro and In Silico Tools to Enhance Modern Safety Assessment. Dr. Suzanne Fitzpatrick, senior advisor for toxicology at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration gave a plenary lecture on an Overview of the FDA-DARPA-NIH Collaboration on Human/Organ on a Chip.
See attached program for abstracts and agenda. A podcast of the event will be coming soon. For a recording of the webinar on the topics discussed at the in-person business meeting, click here.
Webinar on New Technologies in Risk Assessment
Dr. Russell Thomas, The Hamner Institutes for Health Sciences, presented a webinar on Incorporating New Technologies into Toxicity Testing and Risk Assessment: Moving from 21st Century Vision to a Data-Driven Framework. Click here for a recording of the webinar.
Webinar on the EPA Virtual Embryo Project
Nicole C. Kleinstreuer presents her work on the Virtual Embryo Project, and effort to create biologically based computational toxicology models of the developing embryo. Click here to view a recording of the webinar.
Webinar Update on the Tox21 Program
Dr. Raymond Tice of the National Institute for Environmental Health Sciences presents an update of the Tox21 program, a collaborative effort between three government agencies to use hundreds of cell-based assays to predict human health effects. Click here for a recording of the webinar.
Webinar on Evidence-Based Toxicology
Dr. Martin Stephens of the Center for Alternatives to Animal Testing at Johns Hopkins University presents how evidence-based toxicology can help address the challenge of critically assessing the new methods themselves as well as the data generated by emerging and traditional methods. Click here for a recording of the webinar.
Institute for In Vitro Sciences Practical Methods for In Vitro Toxicology Workshop
Attendees gained hands-on laboratory experience and instruction in the practical application of the lectured topics. Topics for the three and a half day course included: (i) international regulatory acceptance status of in vitro assays, (ii) predicting organ specific toxicity (e.g., ocular, dermal and hepatic), (iii) using cell and organ culture models with histological, biochemical, and molecular endpointsm, and (iv) data interpretation.
Webinar on Effectopedia
Dr. Gilman Veith and Dr. Hristo Aladjov of the International QSAR Foundation presented a webinar describing Effectopedia, an online encyclopedia of adverse effects pathways. Click here for a recording of the webinar.
2010 In Vitro Alternatives Forum
Thank you for contributing to a successful forum. Read the post-meeting report.
Webinar on MetaPath
Dr. Patricia Schmieder of the EPA's National Health and Environmental Effects Research Laboratory gave the first ASCCT member webinar describing MetaPath, a Metabolism Pathway Database and computational tool developed by the EPA. Click here for a recording of the webinar.
8th World Congress for Alternatives and Animal Use
Thank you for helping to make the ASCCT/ESTIV luncheon session a success. A manuscript outlining the discussions that took place during the session has been published. You can view the entire proceedings here.
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