Everyday animals are used for testing often resulting in death and mutilation in my field of bio-materials. I personally feel that this has been a necessary evil for the development of new biotechnologies, but I am not happy about it. Mice bear the brunt of the testing but rats, rabbits, dogs and other animals are often used as well. But there is good news for our involuntary volunteers. Dr. Gefen has been working to create isolated tissue outside of the subject that can be used instead of an entire animal. Early estimates predict that as much as 95% of lab animal population could be spared with this new method.
This is not only good news for the lab animals, Dr. Gefen and others believe that these isolated tissues will actually work better for research. Tissues not associated with the rest of the body is much more controllable meaning that researchers can change variables and view results with more accuracy. This is due to the fact that other systems in the body are not interfering with and mucking up results in the system being tested.
This is great news for our furry friends. The article stated it used rat stem cells to create the fat, bone, and other tissues used for testing. Could this translate into testing of human tissue, using human stem cells? The use of these has been clearly controversial, but if certain drugs and substances are created for human use, it would seem that testing on human tissue would be the most effective method.
ReplyDeleteHuman stem cells are a bit trickier than rats. This is only complicated by the fact working with undifferentiated human stem cells is controversial in our culture. However I did read that human tissue might be possible in the next few years depending on what legislature gets passed.
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