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 1991-1992

Temperature Sensitive SV40 (tsSV40) Cells as Models for In Vitro Testing of Nephrotoxins

James L. Stevens, PhD
W. Alton Jones Cell Science Center, Lake Placid, New York

Dr. Stevens is investigating ways to use temperature sensitive viruses to transform cells so that the cells maintain differentiation markers when a permissive temperature (33°C) for the virus changes to a non-permissive temperature (40°C). He will simultaneously observe if the temperature switch is accompanied by the appearance of differentiation-specific responses to toxins. He is using rat epithelial cells as an initial model with a long-term goal of transforming human epithelial cells. The availability of these human cell lines will reduce the number of animals necessary to test products.