Reducing animal use through more accurate in vitro mutagenicity testing

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Continued innovation by the diverse chemical sectors is expected to provide new, better, and more effective medicines, herbicides, pesticides and consumer products. The public expects these to be safe as well as effective. Cancer risk is perhaps the most concerning. The most potent carcinogens are mutagens: compounds that alter the DNA sequences in our cells. Tests that identify mutagens using bacteria or human/animal cells grown in laboratories have been in use since the 1970s, and they have been effective in ensuring chemical safety. However, these tests often produce positive results for non-mutagens - 'false positive'. This mean that many potentially useful or even life-saving chemicals will have been lost due to misplaced safety concerns. To identify false positives, the number of animals used before exposing humans, is increased - often finding that the compounds are indeed carcinogens. The obvious solution is the development of more accurate cell-based tests, which will reduce this use of animals and bring more useful and safe products for people to use: and that is the ambition of this project.