In Vitro Testing
Harvard’s Wyss Institute has created “organs-on-chips” that contain human cells grown in a state-of-the-art system to mimic the structure and function of human organs and organ systems. The chips can be used instead of animals in disease research, drug testing, and toxicity testing and have been shown to replicate human physiology, diseases, and drug responses more accurately than crude animal experiments do. Some companies, such as the HµRel Corporation, have already turned these chips into products that other researchers can use in place of animals.
A variety of cell-based tests and tissue models can be used to assess the safety of drugs, chemicals, cosmetics, and consumer products. CeeTox (bought by Cyprotex) developed a method to assess the potential of a substance to cause a skin allergy in humans that incorporates MatTek’s EpiDermTM Tissue Model—a 3-dimensional, human cell–derived skin model that replicates key traits of normal human skin. It replaces the use of guinea pigs or mice, who would have been injected with a substance or had it applied to their shaved skin to determine an allergic response. MatTek’s EpiDerm™ is also being used to replace rabbits in painful, prolonged experiments that have traditionally been used to evaluate chemicals for their ability to corrode or irritate the skin.
Researchers at the European Union Reference Library for alternatives to animal testing developed five different tests that use human blood cells to detect contaminants in drugs that cause a potentially dangerous fever response when they enter the body. The non-animal methods replace the crude use of rabbits in this painful procedure.