BAT joins board of American Society for Cellular and Computational Toxicology

British American Tobacco has joined the board of directors of the American Society for Cellular and Computational Toxicology.

A BAT press note issued yesterday said that Marianna Gaça, of BAT’s Group R&D had been voted onto the board of directors of the society, which was established jointly by the Institute of In Vitro Sciences (IIVS) and the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM), and launched at the IIVS Toxicology Forum, Maryland USA in October 2010.

“I know that I can speak for my fellow board members when I say that we are all looking forward to working together to increase the membership and impact of the society’s activities,” said ASCCT secretary, Kristie Sullivan of the PCRM.

The society has just over 100 individual members and 12 institutional sponsors, including scientists from the cosmetics, pharmaceutical, chemical and tobacco industries, ‘CROs’, ‘SMEs’, NGOs, federal agencies, journalists, regulators and animal welfare groups.

“We are thrilled to be involved with the ASCCT at board level and look forward to supporting the ASCCT vision in the coming years,” said Gaça. “We hope this opportunity will further encourage scientific collaboration and increase awareness of emerging areas of science.”

BAT’s Group R&D Centre has established an in-house research program including the development of in vitro cellular and computational methodologies to facilitate the understanding of the biological effects of tobacco smoke and, in the future, help support the assessment of conventional and modified risk tobacco products.