Skip to main content
Glite Dictionary
preclinical test

preclinical test

5.6
A lab test on animals to check a new drug or device before human trials
  • noun
  • Specialized
translation icon : prueba preclínica
  • The results of the preclinical test showed promise for the effectiveness of the vaccine against the disease.

Examples

  • Before testing on humans, the pharmaceutical company must complete its preclinical test in animal models.

  • The researchers conducted a preclinical test on mice to evaluate the new cancer treatment.

  • Its findings hold potentially huge implications for drug development in general because key aspects of the tested drug's activity and properties would likely have gone unnoticed using the kind of mouse study that is the current standard for preclinical tests of candidate drugs.

    Blog text (29)

Synonyms

preclinical trial
vspreclinical test
  • Specialized
6.0

A study on animals to see if a new drug works before testing in people

means the same concept but is called by a different term

How Advanced

phase II clinical trial
  • Specialized
4.2
phase I clinical trial
  • Specialized
1 4.3
preclinical test
  • Specialized
5.6
in vitro
  • Specialized
37 5.4

Surface Forms

preclinical test singular
preclinical tests plural

Morphology

preclinical + test

The meaning is directly compositional: 'preclinical' denotes the phase before clinical (human) trials and 'test' denotes an examination, so together they indicate testing carried out prior to human trials (typically in labs/animals). The prefix 'pre-' and the clinical/test combination is cross-linguistically regular, so a learner who knows both constituents can infer the MWE meaning.

Etymology

The noun preclinical test comes from the parts pre, meaning 'before', and clinical, meaning 'about medical care for people'. Imagine scientists trying a new drug on animals or in a lab before they try it on people, so a preclinical test is a test done 'before' human trials.