STopTox: An Alternative to Animal Testing for Acute Systemic and Topical Toxicity.

Background: Modern chemical toxicology is facing a growing need to Reduce, Refine, and Replace animal tests (Russell 1959) for hazard identification. The most common type of animal assays for acute toxicity assessment of chemicals used as pesticides, pharmaceuticals, or in cosmetic products is known as a "6-pack" battery of tests, including three topical (skin sensitization, skin irritation and corrosion, and eye irritation and corrosion) and three systemic (acute oral toxicity, acute inhalation toxicity, and acute dermal toxicity) end points.

Methods: We compiled, curated, and integrated, to the best of our knowledge, the largest publicly available data sets and developed an ensemble of quantitative structure-activity relationship (QSAR) models for all six end points.