4/5/2012

eTOX makes progress on predictive toxicology

IMI project eTOX , coordinated by GRIB (IMIM-UPF) is making progress towards its goal of developing a predictive toxicology system called eTOXsys, which is now at the prototype stage. In a recent article  in the International Journal of Molecular Sciences, the eTOX partners describe eTOXsys as 'a software tool able to provide useful toxicological risk and hazard assessment.' Users will simply need to enter a small amount of information, such as the structure of the compound they are interested in, and the system will use a series of advanced models to deliver information on the likelihood of potential toxicity of the compound. The system will base its risk assessment on predictive tools built on data held in diverse databases, coming from public sources and, most notably, legacy toxicity reports held by participating pharmaceutical companies, in what constitutes an unprecedented concerted effort at the international level. The data is currently being extracted, formatted and analysed by tools developed by the eTOX project. According to the project team, eTOXsys should significantly improve the quality of the current state of the art when it comes to computational predictions of the toxicity of new drug candidates.

Article reference: Briggs K, Cases M, Heard DJ, Pastor M, Pognan F, Sanz F, Schwab CH, Steger-Hartmann T, Sutter A, Watson DK, Wichard JD. Inroads to Predict in Vivo Toxicology -An Introduction to the eTOX Project. Int J Mol Sci, 2012; 13(3), 3820-3846. PMID 22489185. DOI 10.3390/ijms13033820.