Departmental Affiliations
Center & Institute Affiliations
Thomas Hartung, MD, PhD, steers the revolution in toxicology to move away from 50+ year-old animal tests to organoid cultures and the use of artificial intelligence.
Contact Info
Research Interests
toxicology; pharmacology; infectious disease; alternatives to animal testing; microphysiological systems; cell culture; validation; pyrogen testing; big data; artificial intelligence; metabolomics; developmental neurotoxicity; mini-brains
Additional Links
Experiences & Accomplishments
The main goal of my work is toward a paradigm shift in toxicity testing to improve public health. Due to my background as head of the European Center for the Validation of Alternative Methods of the European Commission (2002-2008), I am involved in the implementation of the 2007 NRC vision document 鈥淭oxicity Testing in the 21st Century 鈥 a vision and a strategy鈥. I have furthered the translation of concepts of evidence-based medicine to toxicology (evidence-based toxicology). This aims for systematic assessment of the quality of all tools for regulatory toxicology and the development of new approaches based on annotated pathways of toxicity (the Human Toxome).
I have a broad background in clinical and experimental pharmacology and toxicology documented in more than 730 publications, (h-index 123 with 52,000+ citations). Previous work centered on the immune recognition of bacteria, including pyrogen testing, and the induced inflammatory response. In experimental and clinical approaches, the pharmacological modulation of these responses was studied. I have relocated to the US early 2009 and established beside the directorship for the Center for Alternatives to Animal Testing (CAAT) a laboratory for developmental neurotoxicity research based on genomics and metabolomics. Recent advances use big data and artificial intelligence for predictive toxicology, Green Toxicology as part of Green Chemistry, and the envisaged Human Exposome. I am Field Chief Editor of Frontiers in AI.
Honors & Awards
1993 Research Award for replacing animal experiments from the German Ministery of Health
1993 Research Award for replacing animal experiments from the European F.I.S.E.A. Foundation, Luxembourg
1995 Sandoz Award for therapeutically relevant pharmacological research
1996 Doerenkamp/Zbinden Award for replacement of animal experiments
2001 Business Innovation Award of the region lake Konstanz for the development of an alternative pyrogen test
2002 RIVM Award at the World Conference on Animal Use and its Alternatives
2003 Environment Award of the Landesbausparkasse Baden-Wuertemberg
2004 Steinbeis Technology Transfer Award
2005 Paula and Richard von Hertwig-Preis for interdisciplinary collaboration
2006 US Society of Toxicology Enhancement of Animal Welfare Award
2009 Russell & Burch award of the Humane Society of the US
2010 Agilent Thought Leader award
2014 EuroGroup for Animals 鈥 Animal Welfare Award
2014 LUSH award: Lobbying Prize
2017 Bj枚rn Ekwall Memorial Award of the Scandinavian Society for Cellular Toxicology
2018 Award of the Hellenistic Society of Toxicology
2020 Ursula H盲ndel Animal Welfare Prize 2020 for Alternative Methods to Animal Experiments by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation)
2020 Doerenkamp-Zbinden Award
2020 Honorary membership Swiss 脛rztinnen und 脛rzte f眉r Tierschutz in der Medizin (ATM) 鈥 physicians for animal protection in medicine
2020/2021 Merit Award by EuroTox
2023 Mid-Atlantic Society of Toxicology (MASOT) Ambassador Award
2025 German Society of Toxicology Award
Select Publications
May 2025: 732 Papers, h-index: 123 (Google Scholar), 52,000+ (Google Scholar) citations
Statistics:
Top 10 journals: Nature (IF 69.5): 3 articles, Nature Medicine (58.7): 1, Science (47.7): 1, Circulation (39.9): 1, The Innovation (32.1): 1, Cell Metabolism (31.4): 1, American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine (30.5): 1, Journal of Hepatology (30.1): 1, Blood (IF 22.1): 4, Trends in Biotechnology (IF 21.9): 1
10 most frequent journals: ALTEX (IF 6.3): 200 articles, ATLA (1.3): 34 articles, Arch. Toxicol. (6.2)/J. Immunol.(5.4): 19, Toxicol. In Vitro (3.7): 12, Infect. Immun. (3.1)/Tox. Sci (4.1)/Human Exp. Toxicol.(3.3): 10, J. Biol. Chem.( 4.7): 9, J. Immunol. Meth.(2.2): 8
Hartung T. How AI can deliver the Human Exposome Project. Nature Medicine, in press. DOI: 10.1038/s41591-025-03749-w
Hartung T, Whelan, Tong W, and Califf RM. Is Regulatory Science Ready for Artificial Intelligence? NPJ Digital Medicine 2025, 8:200. Doi: 10.1038/s41746-025-01596-0
Hartung T and Kleinstreuer N. Challenges and Opportunities for Validation of AI-based New Approach Methods. ALTEX 2025, 42:3-21. doi: 10.14573/altex.2412291
Hartung T and Tsaioun K. Evidence-based approaches in toxicology: their origins, challenges, and future directions. Evidence-based Toxicology, 2:1, 2421187, DOI: 10.1080/2833373X.2024.2421187.
Smirnova L, Caffo BS, Gracias DH, Huang Q, Morales Pantoja IE, Tang B, Zack DJ, Berlinicke CA, Boyd JL, Harris TD, Johnson EC, Kagan BJ, Kahn J, Muotri AR, Paulhamus BL, Schwamborn JC, Plotkin J, Szalay AS, Vogelstein JT, Worley PF, and Hartung T. Organoid intelligence (OI): the new frontier in biocomputing and intelligence-in-a-dish, Frontiers in Science, 2023, 1:1017235. doi: 10.3389/fsci.2023.1017235.