The Center for Alternatives to Animal Testing (CAAT) at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health has selected the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) and the authors of the groundbreaking report, Toxicity Testing in the 21st Century: A Vision and a Strategy, to receive the CAAT Recognition Award for 2009. The award was presented on September 3 at the 7th World Congress on Alternatives and Animal Use in the Life Sciences in Rome.
This award, presented at every World Congress, honors an individual or organization that has made an outstanding contribution to the development of alternative methods or the field of in vitro science. The NAS and the report authors were chosen for this year's award for their visionary publication that launched a paradigm shift in toxicology that could change the way toxicology will be conducted in the future.
The NAS report advocated sweeping and transformative changes in regulatory toxicity testing. The report outlines a new approach that will rely less heavily on animal studies and instead focus on in vitro methods that evaluate chemicals' effects on biological processes using cells, cell lines, or cellular components, preferably of human origin. This new approach is expected to generate more robust data and expand capabilities to test chemicals more efficiently. It also promises to improve animal welfare and substantially reduce (and ultimately eliminate) the use of whole animals in toxicity testing.
Previous recipients of the CAAT Recognition Award include: Robert A. Scala, Herman B.W.M. Koeter, Andrew N. Rowan; Gerhard Zbinden, Per Ottar Seglen, Procter & Gamble Co., Avon Products Inc., Zeneca, Michael F.W. Festing, Julia H. Fentem, and Horst Spielmann.
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