In Vitro Skin Irritation Measurement

Dermal Phototoxicity

MDS offers the EpiDermT human skin tissue model, an in vitro alternative to the animal-based Draize skin irritation test used in the cosmetics, personal care and household products industries. This model offers a skin irritation test derived from human skin cells, which correlates well with the actual response seen in human tissue. It more closely approximates the skin irritation responses that are seen in human subjects.

Five concentrations of the test material (dissolved in water or oil or suspended in oil) are topically applied to two EpiDerm ("MatTek" Model EPI-200) tissues per concentration (i.e. 1 vehicle control + 5 concentrations = 12 tissues). A second set of 12 tissues is treated identically.

One set of tissues is exposed to 6 J/cm² UVA (+UVA part of the test) and the other set is kept in the dark for the same period (-UVA part of the test) for histopathology purposes.