DNA-damage test could aid drug development

A new cell culture test that could save drug companies money and avoid the controversial use of animals to test drugs has been developed.

Developed by MIT and the Whitehead Institute, the test assesses a compound's genetic toxicity and looks for DNA damage in red blood cells formed in the bone marrow of mice.

Unlike the current procedure, which injects the compound into a live mouse, the new assay could allow hundreds or thousands of tests to be performed from the bone marrow of a single mouse, and potentially from human bone marrow.

Leona Samson, one of three professors involved in the assay development, said: 'You'll be able to look in more detail at different doses given at different times in the cell differentiation process.'

Professor Linda Griffith, senior author of a paper on the work, said: 'This is a much cheaper assay that's at least as predictive as previous assays and drug developers can afford to use it a lot earlier in the drug development process.'

The development of the test also has the benefit of offering users an alternative in advance of the 2009 ban on animal testing of cosmetic products and the European Union's efforts to minimise animal testing.

Next steps in the research, which may be carried out by industry partners, will be to test the assay in rats and other organisms, and with a wide variety of other toxic chemicals.

'This research is the first stage in a new type of clinical drug toxicity test,' said Professor Harvey Lodish, a member of the Whitehead Institute. 'And although we haven't done it, you may be able to extend the technique to humans. Humans are the gold standard in that one wants an assay that directly predicts toxicity in humans, not animals, and you could obtain human bone marrow that's left over from medical procedures.'

This work was funded by the Cambridge-MIT Institute, Amgen, the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation.