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 2001-2002

In Vitro Irritancy Test Using Telomerase Transfected Human Corneal Cells

James V. Jester, PhD
The University of Texas Southwestern, Dallas, Texas

Eye irritation testing is recognized as important in determining the safety of consumer products where manufacture or use may lead to accidental exposure and damage to the eye. Irritancy testing as currently performed, however, requires the use of live animals for which there are no recognized alternative replacement tests. The long-range goal of our work is to first develop and then validate an alternative, replacement test using a human tissue culture model that reconstructs the anterior, exposed portion of the human eye. For the development of a human based tissue culture model we have generated extended-life, telomerase transfected human corneal cells that show growth regulation and differentiation that is similar if not identical to normal human corneal cells. We are currently using these cells to develop cultured human corneal constructs resembling normal human corneas. Over the final year of this project we will detennine whether responses obtained from these cultured human corneal constructs are similar to the responses previously measured in live animal irritancy tests. These studies should help in establishing an alternative culture model for the elimination of animals in irritancy testing.