International Chemical Companies Develop Animal Testing Alternative

BASF, a leading international chemical company, and Promega Corporation, an innovative services and solutions provider in the life sciences industry, have developed a test that can reveal a substance’s allergenic potential using a cell line that lives entirely in test tubes. This test requires NO living animals! From Dr. Robert Landsiedel, head of the short-term Toxicology unit at BASF:

Combining the new method with two additional alternative methods to investigate skin sensitization allows us not only to significantly reduce the number of animal studies, but also to predict a possible allergic potential more reliably than before

The method has been submitted to the European Committee for approval as a standard method for toxicological studies in Europe. Read more here.

LabSkin Further Endorsed for Cosmetics Testing

Courtesy CosmeticsDesign-Europe.com

LabSkin, the skin equivalent model developed by Evocutis, has recently been endorsed by a leading expert in the field of dermatology. Dr. Majella Lane, a senior lecturer at the University College London’s School of Pharmacy, performed clinical trials using LabSkin and, as a result of the findings, advocated the technology. Read more about it here. And learn more about LabSkin and the company that created it here. Or watch its video here.

“Organs-on-chips” May One Day End Animal Testing

Courtesy Wyss Institute

Read about this break-through technology that could end animal testing (cosmetic and medical) forever. It’s a chip that contains micro-channels lined with human cells that researchers can use to mimic human organs, and it’s being manufactured by the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University. From the article:

The ultimate goal is to be able to determine the efficacy and safety of new drugs in humans in less time and at lower costs than traditional animal testing.

Cutting-edge technology like this will one day lead to the eradication of animal testing. Pretty amazing stuff!

The Future Without Animal Testing Will Look Like LabSkin

Courtesy of Evocutis

Evocutis, a scientific research and development company in Wetherby, England, has developed a human skin substitute called LabSkin. According to its site:

LabSkin^TM ready-to-use human living skin equivalents for use in your own cell culture laboratory, as an alternative to animal testing.

The company markets this products to other scientists and companies as, among other things, a platform for non-animal testing of skin care products! And the product is ready now–not in concept or testing phases–you can buy it today! This is a breakthrough for opponents of animal testing, in my opinion. To everyone who has told you, in response to your anti-animal-testing stance, “But there’s no alternative, and we can’t use products we don’t know are safe!” you can tell them about this! And to all the companies you may have contacted, asking them to stop animal testing, you can provide them this link!  Pretty amazing stuff.