NTP Interagency Center for the Evaluation of Alternative Toxicological Methods (NICEATM)
ICCVAM webinar focuses on (developmental) neurotoxicity
A January 25 webinar viewed by over 300 people discussed “New Approach Methodologies to Assess (Developmental) Neurotoxicity.” The webinar was presented by NICEATM on behalf of the Interagency Coordinating Committee on the Validation of Alternative Methods (ICCVAM), which NICEATM supports. It was the latest in the ICCVAM Communities of Practice webinar series. These webinars are presented annually and focus on current topics in development of alternatives to animal testing.
In this webinar, two speakers from U.S. federal research and regulatory agencies described ongoing activities in the consideration and development of new approach methodologies (NAMs) for assessing potential effects of chemicals on the nervous system. NAMs are any non-animal technology or approach, or combination of these, that can be used to provide information on chemical hazard and risk assessment. NICEATM scientist Helena Hogberg provided an overview of DNTP projects that use in vitro approaches to predict developmental neurotoxicity hazard. Jyotshnabala Kanungo of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) National Center for Toxicological Research described an FDA project in which neurotoxicity of ketamine was assessed using zebrafish embryos.
Slides and video from the webinar will be made available on the NTP website.
Videos available from recent meetings
Videos and minutes are now available from the September 2021 SACATM meeting. SACATM is a federally chartered external advisory group of scientists from the public and private sectors that advises ICCVAM, NICEATM, and the Director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences and NTP regarding statutorily mandated duties of ICCVAM and activities of NICEATM. The September 2021 meeting’s agenda included detailed discussion of two topics of current interest to ICCVAM: reducing or replacing animal use for ecotoxicity testing and new approaches to validation of new testing methods. The next SACATM meeting is scheduled for September 21-22. Information about the meeting will be posted on the NTP website when it is available.
A video is also available from a December 8 webinar in which Nicole Kleinstreuer of NICEATM and Denise Bloch of the German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment spoke on “Methods for Hazard and Exposure Assessment.” The webinar was the second in a series on “Current Concepts in Quantitative Risk Assessment for Skin Sensitization.” The webinars are providing an overview of the current state of the science in the rapidly developing field of quantitative risk assessment of skin sensitizing chemicals. The webinar series is organized by NICEATM, the Swiss Centre for Applied Human Toxicology, and the Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs. The final webinar in the series will focus on “Opportunities and New Approaches for Quantitative Risk Assessment” and is planned for March 8.
Recent publications
- A report is available from the December 2020 Toxicology Forum workshop on “Assessing Chemical Carcinogenicity: Hazard Identification, Classification, and Risk Assessment.” At this workshop, challenges related to assessing chemical carcinogenicity were organized under the topics of (1) problem formulation; (2) modes-of-action; (3) dose-response assessment; and (4) the use of new approach methodologies (NAMs). Participants acknowledged the scientific limitations of the traditional rodent chronic bioassay, but also identified knowledge gaps that need to be overcome to facilitate the further development and uptake of NAMs. Key among these was development of adverse outcome pathway networks that could guide development of integrated approaches to testing and assessment. NIEHS scientist Warren Casey coauthored the report.
Felter et al. 2022. Assessing chemical carcinogenicity: hazard identification, classification, and risk assessment. Insight from a Toxicology Forum state-of-the-science workshop. Crit Rev Toxicol. https://doi.org/10.1080/10408444.2021.2003295. - A forthcoming paper in the journal Biology describes development of a computational approach to predict whether a chemical would affect the human ether-a-go-go-related gene (hERG) potassium channel. This function regulates heart rhythm and is often involved in drug-induced cardiotoxicity. Tox21 screening data were used to develop machine learning approaches that use statistical models to predict the probability of a new chemical to cause cardiotoxicity via this mechanism. Acting NICEATM director Nicole Kleinstreuer is senior author on the paper.
Krishna et al. 2022. High-throughput chemical screening and structure-based models to predict hERG inhibition. Biology. https://doi.org/10.3390/biology11020209.