Eugene N. Muratov is a Research Associate Professor at Eshelman School of Pharmacy, UNC-Chapel Hill. He received an MS in chemical engineering in 2000 and a PhD in organic chemistry in 2004. In 2014-2023 he was visiting professor at Federal Universities of Goias and Paraiba, Brazil. His research interests are in the areas of cheminformatics, computer-assisted drug design, antiviral research, computational toxicology, and medicinal chemistry. He has co-authored more than 200 peer-reviewed publications and books.
OpenTox Summer School 2024
STopTox: In Silico NAM for Acute Systemic and Topical Toxicity
Modern chemical toxicology is facing a growing need to Reduce, Refine, and Replace animal tests for hazard identification. The most common type of animal assays for acute toxicity assessment of chemicals used as pesticides, pharmaceuticals, or in cosmetic products is known as “6-pack” battery of tests, including three topical (skin sensitization, skin irritation and corrosion, and eye irritation and corrosion) and three systemic (acute oral toxicity, acute inhalation toxicity, and acute dermal toxicity) endpoints. We compiled, curated, and integrated the largest publicly available datasets and developed an ensemble of QSAR models for all these endpoints. All the models were validated according to the best practices in the field OECD QSAR principles, using data on compounds not included in the training sets. Independent external evaluation also confirmed high predictive power of the developed models. We established a publicly accessible Systemic and Topical chemical Toxicity (STopTox) web portal (https://stoptox.mml.unc.edu/) integrating all developed models for 6-pack assays. Scientists and regulators can use the STopTox portal to identify putative toxicants or non toxicants in chemical libraries of interest.