Bans and other legal proposals to move away from animal testing are not news to the personal care industry. In recent years, for example, countries including China, Turkey,South Korea and Australia have announced their plans to follow in this direction.

As such, efforts have been directed at developing non-animal test assays. And while some alternatives have been identified, not all animal tests are easily replaced; skin sensitization is one of these.

Fortunately, a new study published in Toxicology In vitro describes a skin sensitization test based on non-transformed HaCaT cells. Previously, it had been shown to predict keratinocyte activation by sensitizers with 75% sensitivity, 83% specificity and 77% accuracy. The present study confirmed its intra- and inter-laboratory reproducibility and predictivity of sensitizers…/…

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