A €50 million European public–private partnership (PPP) has paved the way to a new era of assessing chemical safety without using animals. SEURAT-1 – Towards the Replacement of In Vivo Repeated Dose Systemic Toxicity Testing – showcases its achievements during a final symposium on 4 December 2015.
Cosmetics Europe communiqué
The EU's FP7 and Cosmetics Europe each contributed €25 million to the largest PPP initiative in the field. The project has successfully built on collective knowledge, taking advantage of the cross-disciplinary expertise of regulators and scientists from over 70 universities, research institutes and companies. Together they have defined a common research strategy and made a decisive step to overcome fragmentation in the research community. SEURAT-1's work not only meets the specific needs of the cosmetics industry but also contributes to a global safety assessment solution for any chemical.
'SEURAT-1 marks a significant strategic milestone in the journey towards a future of animal-free testing; it leaves a solid foundation on which future initiatives can build,' said John Chave, Director General, Cosmetics Europe. 'With our strategic partners, the cosmetics and personal care industry is committed to strengthening our collaboration in this area of research and to continuing our twenty year commitment towards the development of efficient, sustainable and innovative animal-free testing tools.'
The five-year project has delivered a set of tools and technologies, as well as a framework to tie them together. SEURAT-1 teams have together tested the framework with three case studies.
Replacing traditional animal experiments with predictive …
