U.S. laws require that alternatives must be considered before using animals for research and testing.
The Animal Welfare Act requires that Institutional Animal Care and Use Committees in facilities where research and testing using animals is done approve proposed animal use and ensure that alternatives are being used where appropriate.
The Public Health Service (PHS) Policy on Humane Care and Use of Laboratory Animals addresses the use of animals by NIH grantees and within NIH and other institutions under the Public Health Service. The PHS Policy requires that proposals justify the animal use, the number of animals to be used, and the specific procedures to be used.
Replacing animal tests does not mean putting human patients at risk. It also does not mean halting medical progress. Instead, replacing animal testing will improve the quality as well as the humaneness of our science.
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.
Computer (in silico) Modeling
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.
Research With Human Volunteers
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. Microdosing can replace certain tests on animals and help screen out drug compounds that won’t work in humans so that they won’t needlessly advance to government-required animal testing.