Prous Institute Symmetry has been used by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ National Toxicology Program (NTP) as part of a battery of in silico analyses of the potential toxicity of chemicals spilt in January 2014 in the Elk River, West Virginia, U.S.A.  

A chemical mixture used for cleaning coal was accidently released into the river, resulting in contamination of the water supply for nearly 300,000 people. Most of the health effects involved rashes and skin irritation; however, respiratory illnesses, nausea, and diarrhea were also reported.  

Prous Institute Symmetry’s Global Mechanism of Action (GMoA) model was used to predict the potential modes of action of the spilt chemicals. The model uses a proprietary multi-label learning algorithm and is trained with an up-to-date expertly curated data set of 1 million compounds that currently covers nearly 750 mechanisms of action, including target actions related to toxicities and adverse effects. Individual molecules or chemical libraries can be quickly screened and a probabilistic ranked list of the potential mechanisms of actions is provided along with the closest training set analogs for each predicted MoA.

The NTP will be presenting results of their analysis in a poster at the 54th AnnualMeeting of the Society of Toxicology, March 22–26, 2015, San Diego, U.S.A..  

For further information or to schedule a meeting during the conference, please contact symmetry@prousresearch.com.