Kelly Coleman, PhD, ’05 graduate of the Toxicology program in the Division of Environmental Health Sciences, recently received the Best Medical Device Paper Award from the Society of Toxicology’s Medical Device & Combination Product Specialty Section.  The award was presented at the Society’s annual meeting in New Orleans on March 14, 2016.

The paper, entitled “Evaluation of an In Vitro Human Dermal Sensitization Test for Use with Medical Device Extracts” was published in the June 2015 issue of Applied In Vitro Toxicology. The study determined that living human skin was capable of identifying sensitizing chemicals extracted from medical device polymers. If the results are confirmed by a validation study, then 3D human skin may replace Guinea pigs for this required screening test. Using human skin would save time and money, plus spare the lives of thousands of animals that are used every year for sensitization testing of medical devices. Coleman’s co-authors were from Medtronic and Cyprotex.

The paper is available online at http://online.liebertpub.com/doi/abs/10.1089/aivt.2015.0007.

Kelly Coleman is a Distinguished Scientist at Medtronic where he serves as the company’s chief toxicologist.

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Left to right: Alan Hood, President of the Medical Device & Combination Product Specialty Section, Kelly Coleman, co-author Jamin Willoughby, and Barb Henry, Vice President of the Medical Device & Combination Product Specialty Section.