Opportunities for Collaboration
Toxys regularly collaborates with other organisations, either in academic research projects or in public-private or private-private collaborations. As part of such partnerships we are involved in grant applications, provide materials or data, test substances, or co-develop products and services. Toxys is an international expert in (genetic and developmental) toxicology, genome editing, stem cell biology and reporter assay development.
Stem Cell expertise
Toxys has long-standing expertise in the maintenance as well as genetic modification of human and murine stem cells. Furthermore, we are experienced in developing and optimising differentiation protocols for mouse and human stem cells. Genetically modified stem cells were created for the ToxTracker using BAC technology and lately we have extended our expertise to also include CRISP/Cas9 mediated modification of endogenous genes.
Biomarker identification
At Toxys we offer several biomarker-based assays and we are experienced in the identification and validation of biomarkers based on toxicogenomics data as well as literature mining. These validated biomarkers are then used to create reporter cell lines, mostly in stem cells.
Genetoxicity and DNA repair
Apart from the ToxTracker genotoxicity assay, we also have experience in many other genotoxicity assays such as the micronucleus assay, HPRT assay and comet assay. Additionally, we have a set of DNA repair mutant cell lines available, which can be used to investigate the role of different DNA repair pathways. Based on our experience, we can advise on the use of different genotoxicity assays and the interpretation of available data.
These are a few collaborations currently ongoing:
Lhasa – Toxys : Exploiting ToxTracker data for QSAR modeling
Lhasa is a not-for profit organisation that collects data and develops software tools for toxicology and other fields of chemistry. These tools for example allow chemists to predict whether the compound they are developing is likely to be DNA damaging (QSAR modeling). To allow the software to make such predictions, large quantities of data are required. Toxys and Lhasa are collaborating to explore the added value of the QSAR models potentially in combination with ToxTracker. Please see the SOT 2020 poster: Comparing and Combining In Silico outcomes in in vitro mechanism-based assays to predict genotoxicity.
Health Canada: Quantitative modeling of ToxTracker data
Our collaborators at Health Canada are experts in quantitative modelling of in vitro genotoxicity data. They develop and apply of dose-response analysis approaches to determine point-of-departure metrics, which can be used for better human health risk assessment.