In vitro toxicology

In vitro toxicology is the scientificanalysisof the effects of toxicchemicalson cultured bacteriaor mammaliancells. In vitro (literally 'in glass') testing methods are employed primarily to identify potentially hazardous chemicals and/or to confirm the lack of certain toxic properties in the early stages of the development of potentially useful new substances such as therapeuticdrugs, agriculturalchemicals and direct food additives. Most toxicologists believe that in vitro toxicity testing methods can be a useful, time- and cost-effective supplement to toxicology studies in living animals (which are termed "in vivo" or "in life" methods). However, it is generally accepted that the available in vitro tests are not presently adequate to entirely replace animal toxicology tests.

External links

• Alt Web
• The Johns Hopkins Center for Alternatives to Animal Testing (CAAT)
• 3-D, Human Cell-Derived TISSUES for Tox. Testing - MatTek Corp.

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.
It uses material from the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In+vitro+toxicology Wikipedia article In vitro toxicology.