Alternatives to animal testing

Alternatives to animal testing are the development and implementation of test methods that avoid the use of live animals. Alternatives to animal testing are the development and implementation of test methods that avoid the use of live animals. There is widespread agreement that a reduction in the number of animals used and the refinement of testing to reduce suffering should be important goals for the industries involved. Two major alternatives to in vivo animal testing are in vitro cell culture techniques and in silico computer simulation. However, some claim they are not true alternatives because simulations use data from prior animal experiments and cell cultures often require animal derived products, such as serum or cells. Others say that they cannot replace animals completely as they are unlikely to ever provide enough information about the complex interactions of living systems.Other alternatives include the use of humans for skin irritancy tests and donated human blood for pyrogenicity studies. Another alternative is so-called microdosing, in which the basic behaviour of drugs is assessed using human volunteers receiving doses well below those expected to produce whole-body effects. While microdosing produces important information about pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics it does not reveal information about toxicity or toxicology. Furthermore, it was noted by the Fund for the Replacement of Animals in Medical Experiments that despite the use of microdosing, 'animal studies will still be required'. Guiding principles for more ethical use of animals in testing are the Three Rs (3Rs) first described by Russell and Burch in 1959. These principles are now followed in many testing establishments worldwide. Cell culture can be an alternative to animal use in some cases. For example, cultured cells have been developed to create monoclonal antibodies; prior to this, production required animals to undergo a procedure likely to cause pain and distress. However, even though cell or tissue culture methods may reduce the number of experiments performed on intact animals, the maintenance of cells in culture normally requires the use of animal-derived serum. Although exact figures are difficult to obtain, some have estimated that one million fetal cows are sacrificed each year to obtain the world's supply of fetal bovine serum, used to grow cultured cells. Skin irritation and skin corrosion refer to localized toxic effects resulting from a topical exposure of the skin to a substance. Human skin equivalent tests can be used to replace animal-based corrosive and irritative studies. EpiDerm from Mattek and EpiSkin and SkinEthic RHE model are derived from human skin cells which have been cultured to produce a model of human skin. These methods are currently accepted replacements in Canada and the European Union (EU). In August 2010, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) published the Test Guideline 439 which describes the new procedure for in vitro hazard identification of irritant chemicals. Another synthetic replacement uses a protein membrane to simulate a skin barrier and is approved as a partial replacement by the US Department of Transportation and European Union. Several tissue culture methods which measure the rate of chemical absorption by the skin have been approved by the OECD. Phototoxicity is a rash, swelling or inflammation, like a severe sunburn, caused by exposure to light following exposure to a chemical.The 3T3 Neutral Red Uptake (NRU) Phototoxicity Test, approved by the OECD, detects the viability of 3T3 cells after exposure to a chemical in the presence or absence of light. Although originally derived from a mouse embryo, the 3T3 cell line was developed in 1962 Healthy and diseased tissue can be donated from humans for toxicity testing and computer models of the heart, lung, and musculoskeletal systems can be used based on existing mathematical based data.N.A. (2017). https://www.crueltyfreeinternational.org/why-we-do-it/alternatives-animal-testing. A skinpatch test has been designed and is used in Canada to measure development of rashes, inflammation, swelling or abnormal tissue growth on human volunteers. Unlike corrosives, substances defined as irritants cause only reversible skin damage.