March 9, 2019
Whether you are a client, prospective client, prospective employee, a partner or general member of the public, thank you for your interest in ScitoVation and for visiting our Internet site.
If you’ve visited us before, you may have now noticed some changes. Specifically, we’ve changed our tagline from “Innovation in cell-based science” to “Pioneers in Chemical Safety Assessment.”
“We help clients assess the safety of chemical compounds using innovative science, next-generation technology, and professional expertise.”
Why Pioneers?
A pioneer is someone who is at the forefront of exploring new territories. To ScitoVation, we view this as representative of our staff’s contributions to evolving new approach methods (NAMs) – commonly referred to as non-animal methods.
For example, our Senior Scientist Mel Andersen was a member of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) committee that wrote the report on Toxicity in the 21st Century We will not rest on our laurels.
Being a pioneer is our commitment that we will continuously be on the frontline to push the limits of what is possible by developing innovative solutions to address problems faced by our clients in assessing the safety of chemical compounds.
What types of pioneering solutions are we currently working on?
- We are developing an in-vitro assay for toxicity in the lung and other respiratory organs. This assay is needed because regulators are requesting data to assess safety for respiratory endpoints.
- We are developing a liver co-culture cell model where we use both hepatocytes and other liver cells, and which is more representative of the liver as an organ than other models. With this liver cell model, we can keep the cells alive longer making it possible to study toxicity for longer-term outcomes.
- We developed software PLETHEM enables non-modelers to create PBPK models. We recently launched a free version of the software. It is available for download on CRAN. We are designing a pro-version for PLETHEM that we will release later in the year.
In the new paradigm shift to increase adoption of NAMs, we intend to lead the charge as pioneers by working with industry partners, regulators and other stakeholders to help them use these methods. Our new approach applies across the entire risk assessment lifecycle – from screening to submission to regulators.
You may have known ScitoVation and our predecessor organization for our role in helping develop NAMs, we also want to be known as pioneers in helping implement these methods.
The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) National Center for Computational Toxicology is conducting transcriptomics studies as part of their High Throughput Transcriptomics Concentration-Response Screening (HTTr) program using high throughput transcriptomic count data (BioSPyder TempO-Seq) from in vitro whole transcriptomic arrays. This week, ScitoVation is launching ScitoXpress™ which enables clients to conduct transcriptomic studies that follow the same protocol as EPA.
We are part of the generation that will see the adoption of NAMs at a nonlinear pace (the rate of adoption is likely to continue to increase). We see our work as a pioneering movement. It is a pleasure and a privilege to work in this cause with our clients and other partners.
Won’t you join us along this journey?