TOX21: A New Way to Evaluate Chemical Safety and assess risk

Summary

The video explains how toxicologists assess the safety of chemicals, which is a slow and expensive process that often relies on animal testing. Due to the vast number of chemicals in use, many remain untested. TOX 21, an initiative launched by several U.S. agencies, aims to speed up testing by using high throughput screening and computational biology. These technologies allow rapid testing of substances while reducing animal use. Although still in early stages, TOX 21 offers an innovative approach to identifying harmful chemicals and improving safety assessments in the future.

Takeaways

• 😀 Toxicologists use animals, cell cultures, and other tests to explore the safety of chemicals without experimenting on people.
• 😀 Only a small fraction of the tens of thousands of chemicals in use today have been fully evaluated for toxicity.
• 😀 Current toxicity testing methods are slow, expensive, and rely heavily on animal testing.
• 😀 Manufacturers and regulators are working to make toxicity testing faster, cheaper, and more ethical.
• 😀 The National Academies of Sciences proposed a new method to accelerate toxicity testing by understanding biological processes called 'toxicity pathways'.
• 😀 The TOX 21 initiative, launched in 2008, aims to revolutionize toxicity testing in the United States.
• 😀 TOX 21 focuses on understanding biological pathways, developing faster tests, and predicting chemical hazards more effectively.
• 😀 High throughput screening and computational biology are the core technologies behind TOX 21 for testing chemicals quickly and efficiently.
• 😀 High throughput screening uses robots to automate the testing of chemicals, generating large amounts of data on their effects.
• 😀 While TOX 21 can predict how chemicals interact with biological systems, it does not provide definitive information on toxicity or harm.
• 😀 The combination of high throughput screening and computational modeling allows for the rapid screening of thousands of chemicals for potential toxicity.

Q & A

What is the main challenge in testing the safety of chemicals used in products?

The main challenge is that it's difficult to predict the safety of chemicals by simply feeding them to people, as health problems may take years to develop, and experimenting on people is unethical.

Why is animal testing used in toxicology?

Animal testing is used to explore the potential effects of chemicals on humans because it provides insights into how substances might affect biological processes, but ethical concerns and the slow speed of testing make it less ideal.

How long does it usually take to fully evaluate a chemical's safety?

It can take several years to fully evaluate a chemical's safety due to the complexity of the testing process and the limitations of traditional methods.

What is the main issue with evaluating all the chemicals currently in use?

Only a few hundred of the tens of thousands of chemicals used today have been fully evaluated due to the slow and costly nature of traditional toxicology tests.

What are the goals of the TOX 21 initiative?

The TOX 21 initiative aims to better understand the biological processes governing how our bodies operate, develop tests to measure how chemicals interfere with these processes, predict potential hazards, and identify chemicals needing more detailed safety research.

What new technologies are being used in TOX 21 to speed up toxicity testing?

TOX 21 uses high throughput screening and computational biology to rapidly screen thousands of chemicals for potential toxicity and predict how they might interact with biological systems.

What is high throughput screening, and how does it contribute to toxicity testing?

High throughput screening involves running chemicals through tests quickly using automated robots. It generates data on how chemicals affect different toxicity pathways, but on its own, it cannot determine whether a chemical is harmful.

How does computational biology improve toxicity testing?

Computational biology integrates high throughput screening data with advanced data processing and computer modeling to predict how substances might behave in the human body, enhancing the accuracy of toxicity assessments.

Why is TOX 21 considered a promising approach to toxicity testing despite its limitations?

TOX 21 is considered promising because it provides faster, cheaper, and more efficient ways to identify potentially harmful chemicals, although it doesn't directly measure toxicity and is still being refined to better represent human biology.

What role do animals still play in toxicity testing despite advancements like TOX 21?

Animals are still used in toxicity testing to better understand the actual diseases chemicals may cause and to determine how much of a substance is harmful, since current methods cannot fully replace animal testing for these purposes.