ICCVAM Workgroups

While the focus of ICCVAM activities has largely been on human health, ICCVAM also recognizes the need to implement non-animal approaches for ecotoxicity testing. The Ecotoxicology Workgroup was established to provide expertise in identifying and evaluating in vitro and in silico methods to identify ecological and environmental hazards. The workgroup has members from eight ICCVAM agencies.

The workgroup compiled a summary of agency needs for ecotoxicity testing, emerging technologies for evaluating ecotoxicity and environmental safety, and the potential applicability of those technologies for regulatory testing (Ceger et al. 2022). The workgroup is currently evaluating ecotoxicology methods involving animal testing and what alternatives exist to replace, reduce, or refine animal use in the acute fish toxicity assay.

Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are a class of organofluorine chemicals that have been manufactured and used for decades. They have been identified as highly persistent and bioaccumulative in the environment, biota, and humans. There is no consensus definition of PFAS, and depending on how they are defined, the number of compounds considered PFAS can differ widely. While there is broad national and international interest in understanding PFAS hazards, many challenges remain to effectively and efficiently doing so due to the same properties that make them so widespread in their use and application. To address the need for more efficient understanding and characterization of PFAS toxicity, ICCVAM established a PFAS Workgroup. The workgroup has members from nine ICCVAM agencies.

The PFAS workgroup compiled a white paper, which explores the current use of NAMs to evaluate potential adverse effects associated with PFAS and discusses challenges and data gaps. This summary will provide background information for future collaborative efforts to advance the development and evaluation of defined approaches for screening, testing and assessment of relevant endpoints.

Additionally, the workgroup will address the development and implementation of alternative approaches to reduce and replace animal use for PFAS testing following four key steps: (1) reviewing current PFAS definition(s); (2) identifying testing efforts among regulatory and non-regulatory agencies and related challenges; (3) identifying data gaps and opportunities in application of alternative approaches; and (4) identifying and addressing both scientific and non-scientific (including regulatory) needs and challenges.

ICCVAM also establishes expert groups to facilitate communication among agencies on a specific area of interest. Expert groups can be established from workgroups that have completed their charge tasks, or by agency representatives that share interest in a topic for which no specific activity has been identified. ICCVAM currently has expert groups in the areas of acute systemic toxicity, consideration of alternative methods, developmental and reproductive toxicity, developmental immunotoxicity, in vitro to in vivo extrapolation, metrics, microphysiological systems, nanomaterials, ocular and dermal irritation, read-across, skin sensitization, and validation.