The European cosmetics trade association has been active in the development and validation of a number of alternatives to animal testing for various endpoints, and has stated that skin sensitisation is one of its current priorities.
Colipa Skin Tolerance Task Force will hold the second annual workshop on June 21 and 22 in Brussels, with the aim of bringing together experts to discuss the scientific progress that has been made in the area.
According to Colipa, the Skin Tolerance project team is working to strengthen the understanding of how chemicals react with the skin and activate the body’s immune system to cause allergy.
Development of in vitro assays
The ultimate aim is to create in vitro assays that are capable of measuring different chemical and biological parameters that are believed to be key to the induction of skin sensitisation in vivo. These could then replace animal testing methods for this endpoint.
Calculating the bioavailability of chemicals and how they interact with the skin will be discussed in the morning session on June 21, with speakers from the University of Cincinnati, USA and the University of Louis Pasteur, France, as well as industry scientists from companies such as Procter & Gamble.
The dendritic cells, which are involved in the immune response, are also the focus of two sessions on the first day, before the lymphocyte response will be discussed in the final session of the day.
Day two focuses on the evaluation and validation of alternative methods, which have to be evaluated by the European Centre for the Validation of Alternative Methods (ECVAM). Updates from the work of the EU-funded Sens-it-iv consortium will be presented and a representative from ECVAM will give an update on the validation process.
Last on the agenda is the presentation of a number of test cases where non-animal information has been used to support decision making - representatives from P&G, Unilever, Givaudan, L’Oreal and Kao will give their perspectives.
For more information please visit the Colipa website.