Zebrafish Embryotoxicity Workgroup News

Dear EBTC Friends and Supporters,

The EBTC staff would like to wish you a Happy New Year and much success in the coming 2017! May this year bring you health, peace and success in all the projects you embark on in 2017!

In this newsletter we would like to give you an update on the zebrafish embryotoxicity test systematic review that we are working on. Reflecting on the past year of the Zebrafish Workgroup, I would like to thank first and foremost our volunteers, without whom we would not be able to make the advances that we made in 2016. Engaging and training public volunteer reviewers is one the core principles of Evidence-based Medicine. It is essential for driving broad engagement and ensuring objectivity, transparency and effective communication of the science to the public, and EBTC is pioneering this approach in toxicology. Please contact us if you would like to learn more and participate in one of our projects.

Zebrafish Embryotoxicity Study (ZET) Progress

Pilot study - completed
- 50 ZET papers screened, 1 - met inclusion criteria
- 1442 mammalian papers screened, 20 - met inclusion criteria
- Sciome Active Screener software tested
- Results are in preparation to be published
Main study - in progress
- Main study protocol updated
- ZET search updated
- 7,694 total titles/abstracts are bring screened by 2 reviewers per paper

All this work would not be possible without our volunteers and our partners at Sciome, who developed the systematic review software: Sciome Active Screener. If you are interested in joining a growing number of the EBTC partners, please contact us.

Introducing ZET 2016 Leaderboard

The EBTC has recently introduced a new leaderboard which shows the number of papers screened completed by all reviewers, and in particular, our collaborators external to the EBTC team.

Sevçan Gül Akgün, PhD student at Marmara University in Istanbul at the Department of Pharmaceutical Toxicology (see photo) is in the lead in 2016, having completed 1,189 title and abstract screens! A fantastic achievement! There is a tight competition for the second place between François Busquet, Sebastian Hoffmann and Bianca Magiliani. If you would like to contribute to the important research we are conducting, participate in this or one of our other projects, get trained in conducting systematic reviews, and contribute to future publications, please contact us.

Congratulations again, Sevçan! Thank you for your dedication and contribution to the project!

About EBTC

The EBTC is is a collaboration of science, regulatory and industry leaders, formed in order to foster collaborative development and adoption of evidence-based methodologies in toxicology. It is governed by the Board of Trustees.

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