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 1993-1994

Development of a QSAR Database for Skin Contact Allergens

Howard I. Maibach, MD
University of California, San Francisco, California

Maibach and colleagues continue to characterize allergenics and non-allergenics, using descriptors related to mechanisms of transport and tissue binding, to construct QSAR (quantitative structure activity relationship) computer database for skin contact allergens. The development of a mathematical model for allergenicity will decrease the need for animal testing. Two-valued regression analysis has proven the most precise statistical technique utilized thus far and will be applied to all future modeling studies. The model currently includes 36 allergens and 36 non-allergens with high predictivity over a broad range of molecular structures.