Research 4 : Alternatives to Animal Testing

Source:
Alternatives to Animal Testing
http://www.peta.org/issues/animals-used-for-experimentation/alternatives-animal-testing/


My Topic:
we should not experiment on animals


 What I hope to learn from this source:
I want to find alternatives to animal testing.


Notes:
1. 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
2. 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
3. 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 EpiDerm^TM Tissue Model—a 3-dimensional, human cell–derived skin model that replicates key traits of normal human skin.
4. 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
5. 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.
6.Researchers have developed a wide range of sophisticated computer models that simulate human biology and the progression of developing diseases. Studies show that these models can accurately predict the ways that new drugs will react in the human body and replace the use of animals in exploratory research and many standard drug tests.
7. quantitative structure-activity relationships (QSARs) are computer-based techniques that can replace animal tests by making sophisticated estimates of a substance’s likelihood of being hazardous, based on its similarity to existing substances and our knowledge of human biology
8.Companies and governments are increasingly using QSAR tools to avoid animal testing of chemicals, and PETA actively promotes and funds their use internationally.
9.A method called “microdosing” can provide vital information on the safety of an experimental drug and how it is metabolized in humans prior to large-scale human trials. Volunteers are given an extremely small one-time drug dose, and sophisticated imaging techniques are used to monitor how the drug behaves in the body. 

 

Final Thoughts:

There is alternatives to animal testing : Vitro Testing, Computer (in silico) Modeling, and Research With Human Volunteers. I think it is more effective method because it is more accurate and reliable method than animal testing. So, should we continue to experiment on animal?