BrainStuff Classics: Could Technology Replace Animal Testing?

Trying potential medical treatments on animals was once the best that science could do, but new technologies could make animal testing obsolete. Learn how in this classic episode of BrainStuff, based on this article: https://auto.howstuffworks.com/tech-transport/does-technology-make-us-drive-worse.htm

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to brain Stuff production of I Heart Radio. Hey
brain Stuff, Lauren Vogelbaum here with a classic episode from
our podcast archives. Animal testing is a difficult subject because
it can save human lives, but of course no one
wants non human animals to suffer unnecessarily either. But the
good news is that we're on the brink of replacing

(00:22):
animal testing with various technologies. Hey brain Stuff, Lauren vogelbom here.
In January eighteen, US Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Scott
Gottlieb announced that the agency, after an internal investigation, had
permanently ended a nicotine addiction study in which four squirrel
monkeys had died. He said in a statement on the

(00:43):
FDA website, based on this team's findings, it is clear
the study was not consistent with the agency's high animal
welfare standards. In a September seen letter, famous primate researcher
and conservationist Jane Goodall had denounced the research as cruel
and unnecessary, saying that the harmful effects of smoking on
humans are already known and could be studied directly. In

(01:05):
addition to ending the study, Gottlieb said that the findings
indicated that the FDA's protections for animal research subjects quote
may need to be strengthened in some important areas. For
that reason, he announced the launching of an independent, third
party investigation of all of the FDA's animal research and
the creation of a new animal welfare counsel to oversee
those studies going forward. Additionally, Gottlieb said that the FDA

(01:28):
would strengthen its commitment to replacing, reducing, and or refining
animal studies with new methods, and said that animals should
be used in studies only when there's no other way
to do research that's important for public health. But even so,
he said, it is important to recognize that there are
still many areas where animal research is important and necessary.
In particular, he cited the use of primates as essential

(01:50):
for the development of some critical vaccines for human children.
The research involving monkeys and the agency's response highlighted what,
for many people is a discomforting reality. Despite computer simulations
and other tools available to today's researchers, laboratories still use
large numbers of animals as experimental subjects, and an email,
FDA spokesperson Tara ge Rabbins said that the agency currently

(02:13):
is utilizing eight thousand, one hundred and sixty seven creatures
of various sorts in research That includes over seven thousand rodents,
two hundred and seventy primates, hundred and nine fish, thirty
one lago morphs, an order that includes rabbits and hairs,
twenty mustella that's animals such as ferrets and weasels, twelve amphibians,
six cows, and five goats. But that's only a fraction

(02:37):
of the animals subjected to testing in other government, university,
and private sector labs. A report by the U S
Department of Agriculture listed over eight hundred and twenty thousand animals,
including one hundred and thirty nine thousand rabbits, seventy one
thousand primates, sixty thousand dogs, and eighteen thousand cats, among
other animals. Elizabeth Magner, program manager for the New England

(03:00):
Anti Vivisection Society, said in an email that the most
common toxicology tests, which include oral and dermal sensitization and
irritation testing, still cause thousands of animals to suffer and
die in the US each year, and despite the FDA's
position that animal testing is still essential, there are increasing
questions about its scientific value. Drugs often produce results in

(03:21):
animal tests that can't be replicated with humans, and at
least a few drugs that were deemed safe and animal
testing have turned out to be dangerous or even lethal
when taken by human subjects. The use of animals and
research goes back to ancient times, when Greek physicians did
exploratory surgery on live animals to study their anatomy and physiology.
In the early nineteen hundreds, rodents became a staple of

(03:42):
laboratory research after the breeding of a standard strain, the
whist rat. Katherine Willett, director of Regulatory Toxicology, Risk Assessment,
and Alternatives for the Humane Society of the United States, explains,
when we do research on animals, it's because a hundred
years ago it was the best thing people could think of.
You've learned that animals are not very good predictors of

(04:02):
what happens with people, but will it and others are
hopeful that animal testing will be replaced by alternatives that
will not only spare animals from suffering, but produce more
reliable results about human effects. One particularly promising technology is
the development of microchips lined with living human cells. That
enable them to serve as simulated human organs. Geraldine A. Hamilton's,

(04:24):
President and chief scientific Officer of Emulate Incorporated, explained in
an email how the devices work. She said, each of
Emulates propriety organ chips, such as the lung, liver, brain, intestine,
or kidney, contains tiny hollow channels lined with tens of
thousands of living human cells and tissues, and is approximately
the size of a double A battery. An organ chip

(04:44):
is a living, micro engineered environment that recreates the natural
physiology and mechanical forces that cells experience within the human body.
She said that this technology can predict human responses with
greater precision and detail than modern cell culturing or animal
based experiment mental testing. According to Hamilton's the devices already
are being used by pharmaceutical companies, and NASA is working

(05:06):
with Emulate to use the company's brain chip in space
in order to better understand the effects of microgravity and
other forces. Organ Ships also can be combined in a
system to simulate how multiple organs react to something, and
Emulate is working on the patient on a chip, which
eventually will include organ ships that are tailored with an
individual patient's own cells. Those sorts of developments give opponents

(05:27):
of animal testing hope that it will soon become a
thing of the past. As Elizabeth Magner puts it, we
are confident that this reality is not only possible, but inevitable.
Today's episode was originally produced by Tristan McNeil and is
based on the article will alternative technologies make animal testing obsolete?

(05:49):
On how stuff works dot Com? Written by Sherri's three
Win brain Stuff is production of by Heart Radio in
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