Center for Alternatives to Animal Testing (CAAT), Bloomberg School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland.
Department of Biology, Center for Alternatives to Animal Testing-Europe, University of Konstanz, Konstanz, Germany.
Toxicol Sci. 2018 Feb 1;161(2):285-289. doi: 10.1093/toxsci/kfx243.
Toxicology uniquely among the life sciences relies largely on methods which are more than 40-years old. Over the last 3 decades with more or less success some additions to and few replacements in this toolbox took place, mainly as alternatives to animal testing. The acceptance of such new approaches faces the needs of formal validation and the conservative attitude toward change in safety assessments. Only recently, there is growing awareness that the same alternative methods, especially in silico and in vitro tools can also much earlier and before validation inform decision-taking in the product life cycle. As similar thoughts developed in the context of Green Chemistry, the term of Green Toxicology was coined to describe this change in approach. Here, the current developments in the alternative field, especially computational and more organo-typic cell cultures are reviewed, as they lend themselves to front-loaded chemical safety assessments. The initiatives of the Center for Alternatives to Animal Testing Green Toxicology Collaboration are presented. They aim first of all for forming a community to promote this concept and then for a cultural change in companies with the necessary training of chemists, product stewards and later regulators.
毒理学在生命科学中独树一帜，主要依赖于 40 多年前的方法。在过去的 30 年里，这个工具箱或多或少地进行了一些补充和少量的替换，主要是作为动物测试的替代品。接受这些新方法面临着正式验证的需求和对安全评估变化的保守态度。直到最近，人们才越来越意识到，同样的替代方法，特别是计算和体外工具，也可以更早地在产品生命周期中提供信息，以便在验证之前做出决策。由于类似的想法是在绿色化学的背景下提出的，因此出现了“绿色毒理学”一词来描述这种方法的变化。在这里，审查了替代领域的当前发展，特别是计算和更器官型细胞培养，因为它们适合于化学安全性的前置评估。介绍了替代动物测试中心绿色毒理学合作的倡议。它们的首要目标是形成一个社区来推广这个概念，然后是在公司中进行文化变革，对化学家、产品管理者和后来的监管者进行必要的培训。
