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Full-Text Articles in Life Sciences
Food For Thought … Mechanistic Validation, Thomas Hartung, Sebastian Hoffman, Martin Stephens
Food For Thought … Mechanistic Validation, Thomas Hartung, Sebastian Hoffman, Martin Stephens
Martin Stephens, PhD
Validation of new approaches in regulatory toxicology is commonly defined as the independent assessment of the reproducibility and relevance (the scientific basis and predictive capacity) of a test for a particular purpose. In large ring trials, the emphasis to date has been mainly on reproducibility and predictive capacity (comparison to the traditional test) with less attention given to the scientific or mechanistic basis. Assessing predictive capacity is difficult for novel approaches (which are based on mechanism), such as pathways of toxicity or the complex networks within the organism (systems toxicology). This is highly relevant for implementing Toxicology for the 21st …
Bringing Toxicology Into The 21st Century: A Global Call To Action, Troy Seidle, Martin Stephens
Bringing Toxicology Into The 21st Century: A Global Call To Action, Troy Seidle, Martin Stephens
Martin Stephens, PhD
Conventional toxicological testing methods are often decades old, costly and low-throughput, with questionable relevance to the human condition. Several of these factors have contributed to a backlog of chemicals that have been inadequately assessed for toxicity. Some authorities have responded to this challenge by implementing large-scale testing programmes. Others have concluded that a paradigm shift in toxicology is warranted. One such call came in 2007 from the United States National Research Council (NRC), which articulated a vision of ‘‘21st century toxicology” based predominantly on non-animal techniques. Potential advantages of such an approach include the capacity to examine a far greater …