SARA Model for Prediction of Skin Sensitization
In May 2021, NICEATM entered into an agreement with consumer products company Unilever to collaboratively test and further develop their Skin Allergy Risk Assessment (SARA) predictive model (Reynolds et al. 2019). SARA is a computational model that uses a variety of input data to estimate a probability that a chemical will cause an allergic skin reaction in humans. NICEATM will test the SARA model using a variety of chemical data sets, including chemicals of interest to U.S. and international regulatory agencies. NICEATM and Unilever will also work together to expand the SARA model to include data generated by the NIEHS Division of the NTP. The intent is to make the SARA model openly available for public use along with other NICEATM predictive models. Availability of the SARA model will help further reduce animal use for the endpoint of skin sensitization and will improve upon existing efforts by providing points of departure for quantitative human risk assessment.