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 In Vitro Bioassay for Diagnosis of Insecticide-Induced Delayed Neurotoxicity

Uri Wormser, PhD
The Hebrew Univeristy, Jerusalem, Israel

Wormser and colleagues will develop an in vitro bioassay to detect exposure to delayed neurotoxicity-inducing agents. Previous studies have established the ability of sera from humans and animals suffering from certain types of neuronal damage to destroy cultured nervous tissue. Preliminary findings by these investigators have confirmed that sera of paralyzed chickens and of patients with peripheral neuropathy are cytotoxic in an in vitro pheochromocytoma (PC12) cell system.

During the first year of this project, sera of acutely, subacutely and subchronically TOCP-intoxicated hens will be checked for toxic effects in the PC12 system as the investigators attempt to determine the lowest dose of TOCP which produces sear toxicity, the longest post-exposure interval in which intoxication can be detected, and the relative efficiency of the proposed assay in comparison to known parameters for diagnosis of delayed neurotoxicity.