Resources

Industry Case Studies


Client: Avon

Background: Avon, a global leader in the beauty and cosmetics industry, is renowned for its commitment to providing safe and sustainable beauty products to customers worldwide. Avon sought innovative solutions to enhance the organization and utilization of their vast data resources for cosmetics formulation development. 

Challenge: Avon faced the challenge of optimizing data management and harnessing it for precise formulation decisions while ensuring compliance with ever-evolving safety regulations. The sheer volume of data required an advanced solution to streamline organization and analysis.

Solution: Avon turned to Edelweiss Connect, and our expertise in computational toxicology and data science, for an innovative approach to data management:

  1. SmartSafety Software Implementation: Edelweiss Connect introduced Avon to SmartSafety, a powerful data organization tool. SmartSafety systematically organized Avon's extensive data into a format compatible with in-house software, facilitating rapid and accurate data retrieval.

  2. Data-Driven Formulations: The SmartSafety-enabled data structure empowered Avon's teams to utilize their data effectively, aiding in the formulation of safer and more sustainable beauty products. The tool streamlined the assessment of ingredient safety, resulting in faster and more informed decisions.

  3. Regulatory Compliance: Edelweiss Connect and SaferWorldbyDesign guided Avon in adapting SmartSafety to meet regulatory and safety standards. The tool became a cornerstone of Avon's compliance strategy, simplifying the preparation of documentation for regulatory submissions.

Results: The collaboration between Avon, Edelweiss Connect, and SaferWorldbyDesign, with SmartSafety at its core, yielded these results:

  • Enhanced Data Utilization: Avon's teams harnessed the power of their data, enabling them to make informed formulation decisions.
  • Efficiency and Speed: SmartSafety reduced the time required to organize data, leading to faster product development cycles.
  • Regulatory Excellence: Avon's products consistently met regulatory standards, with help from SmartSafety's robust data organization and compliance capabilities.

Conclusion: SmartSafety, in conjunction with the expertise of Edelweiss Connect, underscores the importance of innovative data management in the beauty industry. Avon's commitment to safety, sustainability, and regulatory compliance was fortified, allowing customers to trust in the quality and safety of their beauty products. 

Applications


Edelweiss Data

Our platform, EdelweissData™, makes data management, integration, and sharing easy. Simply upload your files - in any form - directly onto our secure, cloud-based platform.

EdelweissData™ harmonizes and integrates your data - and even suggests connections and insights you may have missed. EdelweissData™ connects seamlessly to our SaferSkin™ app and many other software applications to take the worry out of data management, usage, and sharing. So scientists can get back to their real work. We look forward to discussing how we can provide you with new solutions in the areas of predictive toxicology, integrated testing, and data integration.


SaferSkin Skin Sensitisation App

SaferSkin™ combines three of the top methods for ITS: the Bayesian Network approach, Multiple Regression Analysis, and ‘2 out of 3‘ Weight of Evidence. 

For decades, animal testing was the only method for testing the potential for skin sensitisation. Today, Integrated Testing Strategies (ITS) combining in silico computer models and in vitro data offer a much better way. In short, if a similar compound is already known to cause sensitisation, the computer model can predict the probability that a new compound could as well. Today, by combining in silico and in vitro technology, scientists can weed out risks before a compound reaches consumers.

Edelweiss Connect’s new SaferSkin™ app industrializes the ITS developed at Procter & Gamble (P&G) and other large consumer product companies for skin sensitivity*. In keeping with Edelweiss Connect’s track record in collaborative scientific communities, we initially worked with P&G to make their approach, designed to respond to that company’s particular needs, relevant to all researchers. 

Why Skin Sensitisation?
Allergic contact dermatitis (aka., skin sensitisation) accounts for 20% of all contact dermatitis cases (“CDC - Skin Exposures and Effects - NIOSH Workplace Safety and Health Topic”; Sasseville) and hence has an estimated annual cost of $200 million (“CDC - Skin Exposures and Effects - NIOSH Workplace Safety and Health Topic”). It is also a public health problem, responsible for more than seven million outpatient visits annually. Currently, there are more than 3700 substances that are identified as contact allergens.

Can I integrate the SaferSkin into my application?
Sure! Besides the web application, we offer an API (Application Programming Interface) intended to be used as an interface by software components to communicate with each other. Please contact us if you are interested in a free trial.

References

  •  
“CDC - Skin Exposures and Effects - NIOSH Workplace Safety and Health Topic.” N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Jan. 2017.
  •  
Jaworska, Joanna S. et al. “Bayesian Integrated Testing Strategy (ITS) for Skin Sensitization Potency Assessment: A Decision Support System for Quantitative Weight of Evidence and Adaptive Testing Strategy.” Archives of toxicology 89.12 (2015): 2355–2383. Print.
  •  
Sasseville, Denis. “Occupational Contact Dermatitis.” Allergy, asthma, and clinical immunology: official journal of the Canadian Society of Allergy and Clinical Immunology 4.2 (2008): 59. Print.

SmartSafety Application 

Data-Driven Formulations: The SmartSafety-enabled data structure empowers teams to utilize their data effectively, aiding in the formulation of safer and more sustainable products. The tool streamlines the assessment of ingredient safety, resulting in faster and more informed decisions.

Regulatory Compliance: Edelweiss Connect adapts SmartSafety to meet regulatory and safety standards. The tool aids in compliance strategy, simplifying the preparation of documentation for regulatory submissions.

Software Development

Data Application Programming Interfaces

We are making toxicological data (and in principle any life science data) organised and easily accessible. Whenever we do that, we also make sure that the data access is always reproducible, be it in private or public environments. The basis for the accessibility is well-defined Application Programming Interfaces (APIs). These APIs allow for automatic data discovery, exploration, and use of data in a wide array of processing tools.

And while APIs are great, we also realize that it is often people first, not the machines, that need to understand and explore the data. For this, we are developing an accompanying web-based user interface that scientists use to quickly explore, search, compare, and finally select and export the data they need. And yes, we provide means to use the selected data anywhere from Excel to piping it downstream (via APIs) to various modelling and processing tools. One very exciting moment for us is when we close the circle and finally use the output of the downstream processing tools to create new datasets in our data platform.

So how exactly do we expose hundreds of millions of data points in such a way that allows users to quickly drill down to exactly what they need? Instead of relying on a black-box search box approach, we heavily aggregate all the data which in turn allows us to construct dynamic user interfaces which users use to filter the data by selecting values from the calculated aggregations. We always combine this with a powerful search box as well.

Example of Edelweiss's Work

Edelweiss Connect undertook a major effort to simplify and modernize data access to scientific data sources, currently focusing on toxicology. Three of the most popular toxicologic data sources are already publically available for consumption: the US EPA's in vitro ToxCast/Tox21 database, the EPA's in vivo ToxRefDB database, and the NIBIOHN's toxicogenomics Open TG-Gates database, and further resources are under development.

For all of these data sources, our aim was to make the data accessible online via the internet in real-time as a REST-style API. Such APIs can easily be consumed by a wide range of workflow tools (e.g. KNIME, Garuda) and programming languages (e.g. R, Python, or Javascript). Our guiding principles are:

• Expose the data faithfully and completely (no missing information, no transformations or edits to the data, reuse existing field names, ...)
• Provide means for easy data access and exploration (provide powerful mechanisms for filtering/searching of data and aggregations)
• Open source the implementation so the results can be audited, from downloading the official release to the data arriving at the client

In addition to adding more data sources, we focus on two major developments:
First, to enable a degree of automated discovery and unification of data sources, we are working on creating standards to annotate API descriptions with ontology terms.
Second, we worked on a set of tools that will allow non-programmers to turn CSV-style datasets into rich APIs. Our vision is to make finding and using data joyful.

Edelweiss Connect Lab



Edelweiss Connect has over 10 years of experience in coordinating and managing major European projects and in developing state-of-the-art in silico prediction and database systems.

In January 2019, we added in vitro expertise to the equation with a new lab at our Basel headquarters. With the lab, our in silico solutions, and the collaboration with our partners in SaferWorldbyDesign, we now offer a complete, “one-stop” service. See how we can support your own initiatives with advanced in vitro laboratory testing plus automation of data integration.

Get in touch

  • Address: Edelweiss Connect GmbH
    Technology Park Basel
    Hochbergerstrasse 60C
    CH-4057 Basel / Basel-Stadt
    Switzerland

USA office

  • Address: Edelweiss Connect Inc
    Research Triangle Park NC
    800 Park Offices Dr
    Durham, NC 27709
    USA