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Skin models to assess contact allergens – The practical course in Milano, Italy

Skin models to assess contact allergens – The practical course in Milano, Italy

From the 10th to the 27th of May 2022 Quinten Marcelis, Anouck Thienpont, and Edyta Wieczorek – researchers from partner institutions (internal members/partners of the Twinalt project) from Belgium (VUB) and Poland (NIOM) participated in the practical part of the S&T COURSE EVENT 6a “Skin models to assess contact allergens” organized on-site by Università degli Studi di Milano (UMIL), Department of Pharmacological and Biomolecular Science.

The three-week practical course was based on the use of the reconstructed human epidermis (EpiDerm System, MatTek) exposed to contact allergens. The endpoint was the assessment of the viability (MTT assay) and the evaluation of cytokine production (ELISA) and computational methodology.

For the first week of the course, the training embraced the reconstructed human epidermis (RhE):
1) arrival and storage;
2) chemical exposure – dose-response on RhE with diethyl maleate (DEM);
3) stop treatment and viability test (MTT assay);
4) viability test results.

In the second and third weeks of the course, researchers carried out students’ practical activities consisting of RhE treatment and cell viability test as previously presented. Moreover, researchers performed intracellular IL-18 content of the cells by ELISA assay. The analyses of the obtained results and a summary of knowledge gained were carried out at the end of the course.