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Testing for Toxicity
05 December 2015

Testing for Toxicity

When an expectant mother is exposed to a chemical or drug, she passes it onto her unborn child. There are increasing concerns that environmental chemicals play a role in neurodevelopmental disorders like autism. But how can we tell which chemicals are toxic to the young developing brain? Scientists have recently designed a fast, cheap and accurate test. Taking human cells genetically modified to act like stem cells, they were able to create tissue that resembles the developing human brain (pictured). Various types of cells within this complex network are labelled here in different colours. The team then exposed the tissue to 60 chemicals and taught a computer to recognise which were safe and which were harmful. After training, the computer was able to predict toxicity of previously unseen chemicals with 90% accuracy. Quickly and accurately identifying chemical toxins brings us closer to making our environment safer for young developing brains.

Written by Gaëlle Coullon

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BPoD stands for Biomedical Picture of the Day. Managed by the MRC Laboratory of Medical Sciences until Jul 2023, it is now run independently by a dedicated team of scientists and writers. The website aims to engage everyone, young and old, in the wonders of biology, and its influence on medicine. The ever-growing archive of more than 4000 research images documents over a decade of progress. Explore the collection and see what you discover. Images are kindly provided for inclusion on this website through the generosity of scientists across the globe.

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