Literature Review: How Biomedical Technology Can Replace Animal Testing?
In the pursuit of disease-free longevity, humanity has been accompanied by the sacrifice of numerous animal lives, creating a highly contradictory issue. Globally, nearly 100 people die every minute, yet the number of experimental animals dying per minute reaches nearly 200, double the human death toll. Due to “species differences,” animal experiments cannot accurately predict human responses, resulting in the need for a larger number of animal experiments to obtain a small amount of representative data.
Have you ever considered how many experimental animals are sacrificed for a single medication? The answer is over 5,000. According to statistics collected by the American animal protection organization PETA, in the pre-clinical toxicology testing phase, at least 400 mice, 4,000 rats, 900 rabbits, and more than 32 beagle dogs are required, which is a staggering quantity. Recent statistics show that the global annual usage of experimental animals reaches nearly a hundred million, and in Taiwan alone, the annual usage is nearly 3.3 million, which is almost 1.3 times the population of Taipei City!
So, when faced with the dilemma of weighing human health brought by technology against the sacrifice of animal lives, do we really have only two choices? Is there no better alternative? The use or non-use of experimental animals involves ethical considerations, but the urgent need for medical advancements pushes us to take greater responsibility for experimental animals. It is crucial to prioritize animal welfare and care until comprehensive and applicable alternative methods are developed.
Recently, I watched a TEDxTaipei talk: “How biomedical technology can replace animal testing?” by Associate Professor Chen Guan-Yu, who is a Taiwanese bio-engineering researcher focusing on finding ways to create an intelligent alternative to animal testing through organs-on-chips technology, he is also a recipient of the Lush Prize Young Researcher Award in 2018.
From his speech, I learned that organ-on-a-chip (OOC) technology, which is the size of a USB flash drive, can simulate complex human organs such as the heart, lungs, and intestines, thereby improving the drug development process. The chip contains microfluidic channels where specific human organ cells are arranged. Researchers inject chemical compounds into these channels and observe the artificial “organs” under a microscope to study their response to drugs. Commonly used organ-on-a-chip models include the heart, lungs, retina, and skin, and they are considered a potential alternative to animal experiments. Even laboratory rabbits, commonly used in animal experiments, can now be effectively replaced by organ-on-a-chip technology, and there are currently many computer programs available that can simulate experiments.
In recent years, the United States, with the support of President Biden, has passed several budget bills related to animal protection, such as the FDA Modernization Act 2.0 and the Reducing Animal Testing Act. Although these two acts do not completely ban animal experiments, they allow drug developers to test the safety and efficacy of new drugs using alternative methods, making animal testing no longer a necessary option. Furthermore, the two acts even allocated $12.5 million to the Animal Wellness Action of the FDA, providing the FDA with more funds to develop alternative testing methods.
Senator Rand Paul, who proposed these bills, mentioned that “The coming years will belong to organ-on-a-chip technology.” He highlighted the FDA’s keen interest in organ-on-a-chip technology and mentioned that in 2021, they extended their contract with organ-on-a-chip developer CN Bio. This industry is rapidly evolving, and while it may not be perfect, we can look forward to a future without animal experiments.
The development of technologies to replace animal experiments originated from the 3R principles of Replacement, Reduction, and Refinement. (I used to discuss this issue here in a previous post) With the rapid advancement of technology, interdisciplinary approaches for replacing animal experiments have gradually taken shape. Emerging technologies such as stem cells, 3D printing, tissue culture, microfluidics, biosensors, and artificial intelligence have ushered in a new era of in vitro biomedical research.
Biomedical engineering is a highly interdisciplinary field, and the field of animal protection is closely related to the development of biomedical engineering. Therefore, I sincerely hope to have the opportunity to pursue a relevant field of study at university and contribute my efforts towards improving the welfare and future of experimental animals.
Sources：
· TED x TAIPEI(2019): “How biomedical technology can replace animal testing?”
· 翻越生醫研究：你不知道的實驗動物 — — 《2016泛知識節》
· USB大小的晶片，就能模擬你身上的器官 — 《知識大圖解》
· Luechtefeld, T., Marsh, D., Rowlands, C., & Hartung, T. (2018). Machine learning of toxicological big data enables read-across structure activity relationships (RASAR) to outperform animal test reproducibility. Toxicological Sciences.
· New digital chemical screening tool could help eliminate animal testing Science, 2018.07.11
