Two distinguished Michigan State University professors are part of a new National Institutes of Health-funded, multi-institutional research hub at Texas A&M University, focused on transforming how industrial and consumer-use chemicals are evaluated for human safety.
The collaborative, multidisciplinary research team received a five-year, $15.3 million grant to establish the New Approach Methodologies Decision Center as part of the NIH Common Fund Complement-Animal Research in Experimentation program. The center aims to improve human-health protection while significantly reducing reliance on animal testing through developing approaches to improve and accelerate chemical safety assessments.
Led by Principal Investigator Ivan Rusyn, professor in Texas A&M’s Department of Veterinary Physiology and Pharmacology, the center brings together experts in toxicology, engineering, data science and regulatory policy to advance human-relevant laboratory models and computational tools. Its work will address longstanding barriers to adopting non-animal methods, especially in regulatory decisions about industrial and consumer chemicals.