How will the Tox21 vision be reached?

The NRC report lays out specific steps to modernize toxicity testing. A focused research effort will be needed to develop, assess, and implement the alternative methods recommended in the report. This vision would be accomplished in phases, beginning with elucidating toxicity pathways and developing relevant databases. This information would be used to develop testing methods that address specific biological elements of toxicity. These assays would then be evaluated for reliability and relevance to human responses and used in place of current chemical toxicity tests. Some of these efforts are already underway in several areas of the federal government and in private and public research institutes, but a much larger and more concerted effort has yet to emerge. But we need not wait for these developments to apply some of the scientific advances that have already been made. Right now, many nonanimal methods are well developed and have been shown to be reliable. They can be used, along ...  more