The Center for Alternatives to Animal Testing is an academic center affiliated with the Division of Toxicological Sciences in the Department of Environmental Health Sciences of the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health.

 

Johns Hopkins School of Public Health

Research Grants 1984-1985

Determination of Photosensitivity by an In Vitro Assay as an Alternative to Animal Testing

John A. Parrish, MD
Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts

John A. Parrish, MD, and associates, of the Department of Dermatology at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, are interested in phototoxic chemicals, such as the antibiotic tetracycline, which make skin more susceptible to the damaging effects of sunlight. They are performing their experiments with cultures of human cells called peripheral blood mononuclear cells.

Like skin, these cells are more likely to die from exposure to ultraviolet light after being treated with a phototoxic chemical than before being treated. These experiments may substitute for human and animal testing of phototoxins. They also provide information that may allow scientists to deduce potential phototoxic effects by simply studying a compound's chemical structure.

Dr. Parrish's associates in this study are Tayyaba Hasan, PhD, Irene E. Kchevar, PhD, and Daniel J. McAuliffe. Some of their CAAT-supported research has been reported in the Journal of Investigative Dermatology (80:319, 1983).