In recent years, there has been a concerted effort made to inflict less pain and distress on experimental animals by refining current methods, reducing the number of animals used, and ultimately replacing these experiments with "in vitro" alternatives. This book discusses the status of alternative methods in toxicology and outlines the most well-established and promising in vitro tests currently available. The book provides a wide-ranging review of these methods and documents their progress in terms of validation and research. It identifies areas where more effort is needed to bring tests towards validation and others where tests will never be suitable for this purpose. The book also looks at future requirements and makes recommendations which will benefit the field. Topics covered by the text include cytotoxicity testing and other in vitro methods for evaluating acute toxicity, eye and skin irritation, target organ toxicity (liver, kidney, lung, cardiovascular system and blood), target system toxicity (nervous system, immune system and reproductive system, including embryotoxicity/teratogenicity) and dermal absorption. Also covered are structure-activity relationships and the application of this approach to the various toxicological endpoints.