Glucox Biotech AB, Stockholm, Sweden.
Altern Lab Anim. 2011 Sep;39(4):389-402. doi: 10.1177/026119291103900413.
The Björn Ekwall Memorial Foundation (BEMF) was initiated by the Scandinavian Society for Cell Toxicology in 2001, to honour the memory of Dr Björn Ekwall (1940-2000) and to establish a prize, the Björn Ekwall Memorial Award. The prize is awarded to scientists who have significantly contributed to the field of cell toxicology, and whose work is contributing toward the replacement of animal experiments by alternative toxicity tests. Over the past 10 years, the Björn Ekwall Memorial Award has been presented annually. Björn Ekwall, an outstanding Swedish cell toxicologist, was one of the pioneers in the development and application of alternative methods to animal tests in toxicology. All his scientific work was devoted to in vitro toxicology, and in particular, to the use of cultured human cells for the screening of toxic chemicals. In the middle of the 1980s, he initiated the international Multicentre Evaluation of In Vitro Cytotoxicity (MEIC) project, to evaluate the usefulness of in vitro tests for the estimation of human acute systemic toxicity. To prove his "basal cytotoxicity concept", he established the MEMO database, in which data on the acutely toxic human blood concentrations of drugs and chemicals were collated from the literature and from clinical studies. He also initiated another project, Evaluation-Guided Development of In Vitro Toxicity and Toxicokinetic Tests (EDIT). The ideas from the EDIT project, together with those from the MEIC project, became the basis for today's international EU projects, e.g. ACuteTox, Sens-it-iv and ReProTect. In this article, 10 years after the start of the BEMF, the scientific achievements of each of the award winners in the field of in vitro toxicology are presented, together with a brief synopsis of their careers.
比约恩·埃克瓦尔纪念基金会（BEMF）由斯堪的纳维亚细胞毒理学学会于 2001 年发起，旨在纪念比约恩·埃克瓦尔博士（1940-2000 年），并设立比约恩·埃克瓦尔纪念奖。该奖项授予为细胞毒理学领域做出重大贡献、其工作正在推动用替代毒性测试替代动物实验的科学家。在过去的 10 年里，比约恩·埃克瓦尔纪念奖每年颁发一次。比约恩·埃克瓦尔是一位杰出的瑞典细胞毒理学家，是动物试验替代方法发展和应用的先驱之一。他的所有科学工作都致力于体外毒理学，特别是利用培养的人类细胞筛选有毒化学物质。在 20 世纪 80 年代中期，他发起了国际体外细胞毒性多中心评估（MEIC）项目，以评估体外测试在估计人类急性全身毒性方面的有用性。为了证明他的“基础细胞毒性概念”，他建立了 MEMO 数据库，其中汇集了来自文献和临床研究的关于药物和化学物质急性毒性人血浓度的数据。他还发起了另一个项目，即体外毒性和毒代动力学测试的指导评估开发（EDIT）。EDIT 项目的想法与 MEIC 项目的想法一起，成为当今国际欧盟项目的基础，例如 ACuteTox、Sens-it-iv 和 ReProTect。在本文中，比约恩·埃克瓦尔纪念基金会成立 10 年后，介绍了每位获奖者在体外毒理学领域的科学成就，并简要概述了他们的职业生涯。
