Friday, 13 August 2010 09:27

Physicists and other scientists founded the American Society of Cell and Computational Toxicology, to promote an end to animal experiments. The Committee of Physicists for Responsible Medicine (PCRM by its acronym in English) and the Institute for In Vitro Sciences Inc. in Gaithersburg, Maryland, have founded a new scientific society to promote research, development and routine use of methods non-animal.

The American Society of Cell and Computational Toxicology (American Society for Cellular and Computational Toxicology, ASCCT) is the first North American scientific association committed to this mission.

Currently, drugs are tested, chemicals, pesticides and other consumer products on animals for health reasons. Animals used in these experiments go through some painful treatments that wipe out your life, and the results of the tests are not always applicable to the human reaction to drugs or chemicals. Although there have developed alternatives to animal testing and further developed many more, much more research is needed to replace animals in toxicity testing. Somewhat frequently, a new alternative to animal testing, but we must work hard to ensure that companies make use of this method and that is accepted by regulatory agencies.

The American Society of Cell and Computational Toxicology (see website) will help overcome these barriers and accelerate the process to replace animal-based toxicological testing, facilitate collaboration and open dialogue between industry, academics and scientists and support regulatory . The company also will seek to encourage participation of young scientists to ensure that new generations of scientists and regulators to understand and interpret how to use alternatives to animal testing and information obtained through these methods.

The Institute for In Vitro Sciences and CPMR founded the American Society of Cell and Computational Toxicology, motivated by the increasing interest in toxicology that followed the publication in 2007 of the report of the National Academy of Sciences "Toxicity Testing in the 21st Century: A Vision and a Strategy, which called for finding a new strategy for toxicity testing based on human tissues and cells instead of animals.