Conference focuses on toxicity safety testing alternatives

The 7th World Congress on Alternatives and Animal Use in Life Sciences is a five day event that will be used as a platform to discuss the replacement of repeated dose systematic toxicity testing in human safety assessment for a range of industries including personal care.

The event will take place over two days, August 31 and September 1, at the Rome Cavalieri Hotel and is being organised in conjunction with the European industry association Colipa and the European Commission.

Day one will cover the general information on the call for proposals, whereas day two will cover more specific information relating to technical and administrative aspects of the topic.

First session will tackle new strategies​

The first session will be an evening address, starting at 6:30pm with an orientation on the subject area given by Professor Thomas Hartung, head of the European Centre for Validation of Alternative Methods.

This will then give way to presentations given by Ruxandra Draghia-Akli, director of the European Commission DG RTD.F, who will talk about new alternative testing method strategies, Bertil Heernik, Colipa director, who will discuss the association’s role in this strategy.

The final presentation will be given by Horst Spielmann, who will discuss scientific strategies for the replacement of animals in repeated dose systematic toxicity testing, before the session is ended with a general questions and answers segment.

Second session will look at technical details​

The second session, on September 1, will look more closely at the specific technical and administrative challenges these aims present.

Colipa and the European Commission are currently reviewing a list of presentations for this session, having put out a request to scientists to share information about the topic.

The speakers for the session and the topics to be discussed are due to be confirmed in the next few days.