The In Vitro Toxicology and Dermato-cosmetology (IVTD) research group of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) constitutes a hub for many promising R&D projects within a broad scientific scope. They all share one common goal, namely an improvement of human health and safety. We achieve this by:

• Developing robust and human-relevant liver-based in vitro models to discriminate between safe and toxic drug candidates, and consequently reduce human exposure to liable products and safety-related drug attrition.
• Elucidating mechanisms that underlie diseases, with focus on liver, skin and recently also airways. More specific interest includes acute and chronic liver conditions, as well as different forms of allergic, autoimmune and autoinflammatory diseases.
• Identifying new drug targets and disease biomarkers, and evaluating cell- and immunotherapy strategies, eventually leading to new effective therapy options.
• Developing new analytical methods to identify toxic ingredients in e.g. illegal cosmetic and pharmaceutical products.
• Providing expert training in safety assessment, with emphasis on cosmetics and their ingredients within the context of the European legislation.