ABSTRACT
In the past twenty years, the toxicological community has witnessed an unprecedented burgeoning of the development of various types of non-genetic, systemic and local in vitro methods as alternatives to animal testing. Although traditionally founded as mechanistically based cell culture procedures, many of them were adapted as empirical measures of many types of toxicity, based on the assumption that their targets are similar to those encountered in vivo. Some of these protocols are now well-established, such as the use of cell culture models to screen or predict for dermal and ocular local toxicity. Other proposed alternative in vitro tests are currently undergoing standardization of the procedures between single laboratories and institutions, such as the testing for acute systemic and target organ toxicity (including nervous system, liver, heart, and kidney), as well as various toxicokinetic tests. About 10 to 20 test methods have been developed for each system, now totaling about 100 to 200 different quantitatively reliable procedures.
