Alternatives to Animal Testing
Animal testing raises ethical questions and is not equally informative for every scientific question. This seminar introduces the alternative methods available today, how they are validated and what is required for regulatory acceptance.
Seminar content
- Current landscape and the 3Rs: Replacement, Reduction and Refinement
- New Approach Methodologies (NAMs): in vitro and in silico methods
- QSAR, read-across, high-throughput methods and omics technologies
- Adverse Outcome Pathways (AOPs) and Integrated Approaches to Testing and Assessment (IATA)
- Principles of method development and validation
- Legislation, OECD guidelines and regulatory requirements
- GCCP and GLP compliance
- Study plans, SOPs, prevalidation and interlaboratory studies
- Sensitivity, specificity, reproducibility and predictive capacity
- Peer review and regulatory acceptance
Using practical examples, you will learn how alternative testing strategies can replace, reduce or refine animal testing, and where their limitations lie.
Modern toxicology and regulatory change
Toxicological safety assessment increasingly relies on computational models, cell and tissue systems, and mechanistic approaches. For regulatory use, these methods must be clearly defined, standardised, reproducible and adequately validated.
Current developments
- The growing role of NAMs in research and safety assessment
- Advances in complex 3D cell models and organ-on-chip systems
- Integrating different data sources through AOPs and IATA
- Increasing use of high-throughput and omics methods
- Standardisation, validation and regulatory acceptance of new methods
This seminar provides a concise overview of modern alternative methods and their path from development to regulatory acceptance. You will learn to assess the potential and limitations of non-animal methods realistically.