08:30 - 11:00 Workshop A: Predicting Toxicology without Animals; Realistic Prospect or Utopian Fantasy?

• Detecting potential toxicities at the high throughput stage before using in vivo methods has scientific, commercial and ethical benefits. What are the prospects of detecting all toxicity in silico and in vitro?

Workshop participants will be invited to explore the potential of predictive toxicology including discussions on:

• What adverse effects do we need to detect?
• What tools are currently available to do this?
• How could we deal with unexpected and rare toxicological events without using in vivo models?
• What does the ideal model look like?
• What research questions need addressing to reach the ideal model?

Dr Kathryn Chapman
Program manager and Dr Stuart Creton, Program Manager National Centre for the Replacement, Refinement and Reduction of Animals in Research
NC3R’s

Refreshments will be provided.

11:30 - 14:30 Workshop B: Stem-Cell Technology will Revolutionize Toxicity Evaluation and Risk Assessment

• Current approaches to toxicity testing rely primarily on a complex array of studies that evaluate observable outcomes in whole animals, such as clinical signs or pathologic changes that are indicative of a disease state.
• Toxicity testing founded primarily on in vitro methods that evaluate changes in biologic processes using cells or cell lines, preferably of human origin, could produce results in less time because it is not necessary to allow disease to develop.
• Development of methods for the expansion of human embryonic stem cell cultures would allow for development of analogous human models. Embryonic stem cells could be especially useful in the regard as they can be differentiated into cells of many types (Nature Rev Drug Discov. 2007Aug; 6(8):605-16).
• The workshop will explore several options for a stem cell approach: to provide broad coverage of chemicals, chemical mixtures, outcomes, and life stages; to reduce the cost and time of testing; to use fewer animals and cause minimal suffering in the animals used; and to develop a more robust scientific basis for assessing health effects of environmental agents.

Dr William Suk
Director of the Centre for Risk and Integrated Science
National Institute for Health US (NIHS)

Lunch and refreshments will be provided.

15:00 – 17:30Workshop C: Cell Based High Content Assays for In Vitro Toxicology - A Promising Future

This workshop will focus on the increasing body of data that shows the value of using imaging based assays for in vitro toxicology, both as an improved way to risk assess compounds in discovery (reducing attrition rates) as well as approaches targeted at replacing/reducing the use of animals for testing. The workshop will discuss peer reviewed data, discuss validation data using new high content platforms from Thermo Scientific as well as share experiences from users of these imaging techniques who are pioneering new methods of in vitro toxicity assessment.

Martin Pietila, Thermo Fisher Scientific, with contributions from Apredica Inc, and others