In Vitro Robotic Assay for Estrogenic Activity

最近的科学研究表明，塑料、医药、杀虫剂、化妆品、食品添加剂等中使用的许多化学物质都是内分泌干扰物。EDS以各种方式干扰荷尔蒙活动，在极低的浓度下(皮摩尔到纳摩尔)对许多生理过程产生显著的不利影响，特别是对胎儿或发育中的哺乳动物。EDS在我们环境中的流行和作用要求开发高度特异、灵敏、可靠、快速和经济有效的检测方法。因此，各种政府机构(EPA、FDA和ICCVAM)和积极主动的公司明确希望对EA进行体外机器人检测，但这种检测还没有商业化 可用，更不用说验证了。 认证化学公司(CCI)刚刚成功完成了第一阶段SBIR项目，以证明开发一种利用MCF-7细胞增殖的机器人EA检测方法是可行的。在这个第二阶段的应用中，CCI建议改进和广泛验证这一测试，以便它可以在第三阶段完全商业化。CCI还建议检查食品和塑料中使用的一组抗氧化剂的EA的理论预测与通过这种机器人细胞增殖测试测量的实际EA之间的关系。 我们对EA的机器人筛查试验的验证应该具有重要的商业意义，因为大量的化学品(&gt；10,000)--更不用说化学混合物--应该由营利、非营利或政府实体对EA进行筛查。来自机器人化验的数据也将具有商业重要性，因为它将使我们能够设计食品和塑料中缺乏EA的添加剂的专有配方。

Recent scientific investigations have shown that many chemicals used in plastics, pharmaceuticals, )esticides, cosmetics, food additives, etc. are endocrine disruptors (EDs). EDs interfere in various ways with hormonal activity to have significant adverse effects on many physiological processes at very low (picomolar to nanomolar) concentrations, especially on fetal or developing mammals. The prevalence and actions of EDs in our environment warrants the development of highly specific, sensitive, reliable, rapid, and cost-effective detection. Consequently, various governmental bodies (EPA, FDA, and ICCVAM) and proactive corporations explicitly desire an in vitro robotic assay for EA, but no such assay is commercially available, much less validated. CertiChem (CCi) has just successfully completed a Phase I SBIR project to demonstrate that it is feasible to develop a robotic assay for EA using MCF-7 cell proliferation. In this Phase II application, CCi proposes to improve and extensively validate this assay so that it can be fully commercialized in Phase III. CCi also proposes to examine the relationship between theoretical predictions of EA for a set of antioxidants used in foodstuffs and plastics and the actual EA as measured by this robotic cell proliferation assay. Validation of our robotic screening assay for EA should be commercially important because of the large number of chemicals (>10,000) - much less chemical mixtures -that should be screened for EA by profit, non-profit, or governmental entities. Data from our robotic assay will also be of commercial importance because it will enable us to design proprietary formulations of additives that lack EA for foodstuffs and plastics.