"In Vitro Prediction of Skeletal Teratogenicity of Environmental Chemicals."

Nicole Sparks, a Ph.D. student under the mentorship of Dr. Nicole l. zur Nieden at the University of California, Riverside, is in her third year of funding from IFER for her project “In vitro prediction of skeletal teratogenicity of environmental chemicals.” Nicole continues to make impressive progress in her efforts to develop a method to accurately predict and identify compounds that can cause skeletal abnormalities during development using human stem cells. As existing teratogenicity tests rely on animals and have low predictively for human effects, the need for a human-relevant in vitro embryotoxicity screen has never been greater.