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Thermo Fisher Scientific Introduces New Screening Tool for Developmental Neurotoxicity
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Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. introduced the Thermo Scientific ToxInsight Developmental Neurotoxicity Panel, a groundbreaking new tool for assessing the potential of a chemical to harm the developing human nervous system. The Developmental Neurotoxicity Panel is designed for use with the Thermo Scientific ToxInsight Consumer and Health Products Safety (CHPS) Platform.
The increasing incidence of human neurological disorders has created a strong concern over the possibility that chemicals in the environment may play a role by adversely affecting the developing human nervous system.
According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, more than 80,000 chemicals in use lack sufficient developmental neurotoxicology data because testing methods cost more than $1 million per chemical and require more than one year to complete.
However, the new Thermo Scientific ToxInsight Developmental Neurotoxicity Panel enables rapid and cost-effective screening for the effects of these chemicals on neuronal cells. This assay and the ToxInsight CHPS Platform combine frozen stocks of engineered rodent neuronal cells with fluorescent dyes and is designed to produce positive or negative outcome determinations from several measurements of growing neurons in fluid culture.
The ToxInsight CHPS Platform makes multiple measurements on each cell, generating a phenotype rather than a single measurement, as compared to traditional biochemical assays (such as cell count, LDH, MTT etc.). In addition to automated developmental neurotoxicity screening, this automated, bench-top platform is easy-to-use and provides physiologically relevant toxicity assays in vitro, reducing the reliance on late-stage histopathology or animal studies. The ToxInsight CHPS Platform not only profiles compounds for their toxicity risk, but it also determines the mechanism of action of any toxicity detected, enabling researchers to rapidly understand the risk of exposure to the chemical.
The Thermo Scientific ToxInsight Developmental Neurotoxicity Panel and ToxInsight CHPS Platform will be demonstrated at booth 1634 at the Society of Toxicology 2012 annual meeting in San Francisco, March 12-14, 2012.
