Erwin L Roggen
3Rs Management and Consulting ApS, Denmark
Posters & Accepted Abstracts: J Allergy Ther
Novel methods for assessing the sensitizing potential of substances have improved the molecular understanding of the mechanisms behind sensitization induction. There are animal free approaches emerging which are more accurate in predicting a sensitization potential than animal models, and which, in contrast to the in vivo studies, distinguish e.g., between skin and respiratory sensitizers. Evaluation of the potency of chemical sensitizers with in vitro methods may become reality in the near future. While the understanding of the molecular mechanisms driving skin sensitization is substantial, the mechanisms driving respiratory sensitization and oral sensitization are less well understood. For xenobiotics, the understanding of the relation between reactivity rates, mechanism of haptenation, protein target selection, pathway activation and T-cell skewing is still not sufficient to profile chemicals using animal-free testing methods. For proteins, the molecular initiation effect is often not known. More efforts should focus on refining existing methods and further developing new methods that lead to an improved awareness of the real mechanisms of a substance in triggering a sensitization reaction in exposed human beings.
Email: 3RsMC.eu@gmail.com