Towards an animal-free integrated testing strategy for the identification of skin sensitizing chemicals

Determining whether chemical materials can cause an allergy on the skin (contact allergy) can occur in the near future without using laboratory animals. That is the conclusion of this PhD research that was carried out at the RIVM and Maastricht University as part of the Netherlands Toxicogenomics Centre project. Combining different test methods in a test strategy leads to a better prediction than using laboratory animals or simple tests. The new strategy is promising, but cannot yet fully replace animal testing.