Thermo Fisher Scientific Introduces a Screen for Developmental Neurotoxicity

Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc., a world leader in serving science, today introduced the ToxInsight Developmental Neurotoxicity Panel, a groundbreaking new tool for assessing the potential of a chemical to harm the developing human nervous system.

Increasing prevalence of human neurological disorders has created a strong concern in the chemical industry that products on the market today may lead to unknown adverse effects on the developing human nervous system.

Estimates indicate that as many as 86,000 chemicals are suspected to have toxic effects on human nervous tissue but no toxicology data exists because current testing methods are too expensive and time consuming.

In response, Thermo Fisher Scientific announced today the availability of a high-throughput animal-free pre-screen for developmental neurotoxicity. The technology combines frozen stocks of engineered rodent neuronal cells with fluorescent dyes and the Thermo Scientific ToxInsight CHPS Platform and produces positive or negative outcome determinations from several measurements of growing neurons in fluid culture.

The Developmental Neurotoxicity Cartridge of consumables and cells are provided standard operating procedure and automation protocols for the Thermo Scientific ToxInsight IVT Platform. The software supports analysis and toxicity determination neurotoxins with multiple and varying mechanisms of action.

The ToxInsight CHPS Platform makes multiple measurements on each cell, generating a phenotype rather than a single measurement as compared to traditional biochemical assays (such as cell count, LDH, MTT etc.). In addition to automated Developmental Neurotoxicity Screening, this automated, bench-top platform is easy-to-use and provides physiologically relevant toxicity assays in vitro, reducing the reliance on late-stage histopathology or animal studies. The ToxInsight CHPS Platform not only profiles compounds for their toxicity risk, but it also determines the mechanism of action of any toxicity detected enabling researchers to rapidly understand the risk of an endocrine active chemical in minutes.

The Developmental Neurotoxicity Panel Assay and ToxInsight CHPS Platform will be exclusively demonstrated at booth 1632 at the meeting of the Society of Toxicology 2012 annual meeting, San Francisco, California March 12-14, 2012.