First Annual Meeting of the American Society for Cellular and Computational Toxicology (ASCCT)

The first meeting of ASCCT, held at the National Institutes of Health on Sept 21, 2012, included both overviews of the state of the art of the regulatory applicability of new approaches to toxicology and detailed presentations of new methods. The meeting provided an intimate setting for productive exchange between scientists and regulators from academia, government, industry, and the animal welfare community.

The meeting kicked off with the plenary lecture by Melvin Andersen of the Hamner Institutes who provided an overview of the evolution of in vitro and in silico approaches as well as some recent projects underway at the Hamner. Suzanne Fitzpatrick of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) provided an overview of coordinated efforts between FDA and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and the NIH to provide funding for human cell-derived 3-D tissues and organs. She also described some of the funded projects. Catherine Willett of The Humane Society of the United States provided an overview of the development and application of Adverse Outcome Pathways (AOPs) and gave examples from the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development and EPA of AOPs as applied to both ecotoxicity and human health endpoints. Detailed presentations included an example of applying real time, label-free impedance technology to detect endocrine activity by Can Jin, from ACEA Biosciences, and quantification of a high-throughput micronucleus assay by Flow Cytometry presented by Rohan Kulkarni from BioReliance.

There were also numerous poster presentations covering development in methods of skin and eye irritation, sensitization, genotoxicity, cell transformation, and neurotoxicity. Several posters covered policy approaches to reduction of animal use in testing.

Following the meeting was a reception and presentation of the William and Eleanor Cave Award by Sue Leary of Alternatives Research and Development Foundation. This year's recipient was Melvin Andersen, for his personal evolution from animal toxicologist to visionary leader of the toxicity testing for the 21st century paradigm shift.