PrecisionTox

The EU aims to promote alternative methods to animal testing. EU-funded PrecisionTox proposes 'precision toxicology', a novel scientific approach establishing causation between chemicals and their adverse health effects. The project focuses on human cell lines and a diverse suite of biomedical model organisms, i.e. fruit flies, water fleas, round worms and embryos of zebrafish and frogs, which share many genes with humans by evolution. These 3Rs compliant, cost-effective testing models enable the mapping of origins of toxicity pathways on the branches of the animal evolutionary tree to predict health risks to humans. By providing data where the toxicity of substances is unknown, PrecisionTox will ultimately translate into regulatory and industrial practices that better protect human health and the environment. 

For this, PrecisionTox establishes the following objectives: 

1. Stakeholder Integration: embedding the Stakeholder Advisory Group in project management, 

2. Comparative Toxicology: utilising high-throughput testing methods across five non-sentient species and human cell lines to observe toxic response,  

3. Molecular Data Production: applying metabolomics and transcriptomics to comparative toxicology samples to trace adverse outcomes via the molecular key events preceding them, 

4. Quantitative Susceptibility: applying quantitative genetics and gene expression profiling to understand variation in individual susceptibility and develop empirical exposure thresholds, 

5. Biomarker Discovery, PrecisionTox Data Commons, and NAM Toolbox: using machine learning to identify biomarkers for molecular key events and creating the dissemination and translation products for their use and 

6. Regulatory Analysis and Application: partnering with JRC and regulatory agencies to identify opportunities for applying Precision Toxicology within existing regulatory structures and develop draft guidance for industry use and reporting.