New algorithm might put an end to animal testing

The practice of using animals to test the toxicity of chemicals might be put to an end, thanks to a new study. A new high-speed algorithm compares tested and untested chemical fragment compounds in order to predict an untested chemical's toxicity. Published in the Journal of Environmental Health Perspectives, the details suggests that out of the 85,000 compounds used currently in consumer products, the majority have not been comprehensively tested for safety. The researchers developed a first-of-its-kind algorithm that automatically extracts data from PubChem, a National Institutes of Health database of information on millions of chemicals.