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 1986-1987

Incorporation of Species Differences in Metabolism into In Vitro Teratogenicity Testing

Barbara Hales, PhD
McGill University School of Medicine, Montreal, Canada

Hales is using rat embryos in vitro to investigate the role of maternal liver enzymes in birth defects caused by drugs taken during pregnancy. During her first year of CAAT funding, she examined the effects of several drugs on rat embryos in the absence of maternal enzymes. She will study the effects of these drugs on the embryos in the presence of maternal enzymes of rats, mice, hamsters, rabbits and monkeys. Eventually, Hales hopes to develop a test for drugs and other products that might cause birth defects. Such a test could reduce the number of animals currently used. And because government regulations require testing in several species, a test using rat embryos cultured with maternal enzymes of other species might also reduce the number of species used.