ICCVAM Biennial Report 2014-2015

In 2013, Linda Birnbaum, Ph.D., director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) and the National Toxicology Program (NTP) announced that NIEHS would move forward with a different philosophy toward ICCVAM whereby the partner regulatory agencies would drive ICCVAM’s activities. At the same time, NICEATM would expand its scope to provide bioinformatic and computational toxicology support to the NIEHS Division of the NTP and its Biomolecular Screening Branch.

In 2014 and 2015, projects initiated under this new vision began to bear fruit, with potential impact on animal use worldwide.Some key accomplishments include:

• NICEATM and ICCVAM scientists developed a computational approach that integrates several types of data to predict human skin sensitization hazard without using animals.
• The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced a plan to adopt high throughput screening assays and computational models for detecting and measuring estrogen receptor bioactivity as an alternative for three Tier 1 tests currently used in its Endocrine Disruptor Screening Program to assess estrogen receptor activity.
• NICEATM evaluated computational approaches to correlate in vitro and in vivo dosimetry. To encourage research and collaboration in this area, ICCVAM made in vitro to in vivo extrapolation the topic of its first Communities of Practice webinar; the positive response to the webinar led to a NICEATM-organized webinar series and workshop on the topic.
• NICEATM continues to evaluate data from acute oral and dermal toxicity tests to determine whether data from oral toxicity tests could be used to assign EPA dermal hazard classifications and eliminate the need for separate acute dermal toxicity tests.
• NICEATM worked with ICCVAM member agencies and international partners to organize a series of workshops that produced recommendations on use of an in vitro test with potential to replace animal use for pertussis vaccine testing.