Using lab animals in the development of new treatments is widely practiced all over the world. Lab animals become models for diseases, and their behavior is observed for scientific research.
However, there is a downside to it: issues in ethics and the quality of science can arise with animal testing.
This may soon be solved. Researchers in Maryland have grown the "mini brain," an extremely miniscule organoid with human cells and neurons that mimic the function of a real human brain.
The mini brain isn't capable of cognition or conscious thought, and it isn't capable of experiencing suffering or pain, but it exhibits similar characteristics to the real thing.
The lab-grown organoid, which is already standardized, has the potential to be mass-produced. If that happens, it will radically change how drugs are tested and replace lab animals used for neurological research.
The Pros And Cons Of Using Animals For Drug Research
Scientists who use lab animals for experimentation are aware of the ethical problems that come with performing the study. They acknowledge that testing should be made in a humane way.
They also believe that it's wrong to use lab animals, so they often resort to alternative testing methods that could produce the same, valid results.
Animal testing is only allowed if and only if suffering is minimized in the experiment; and the benefits gained for humans could not be attained in other methods.
On the other hand, animal testing is unacceptable because animals suffer from experiments; the benefits to humans are sometimes unproven; the benefits to humans could be produced in some other way.
What's more, scientists argue that even high-quality animal studies end poorly when done in human clinical research.
Molecular biologist Thomas Hartung, lead developer of the mini brain project, agrees with this sentiment. While he agrees that using rodents in testings can be useful, he stresses the fact that humans are not rodents.
"We are not 150 pound rats," said Hartung, adding that lab animals used in testing are often young and healthy, but only live on for two years in the case of lab rats.
Hartung said 95 percent of drugs that appear promising during animal testing can fail during human clinical trials, at great expense of time and money.
Harnessing The Mini Brain
This is where the mini brain comes in. Although the human brain is not just a ball of cells, Hartung believes using the mini brain can offer better data than animal testing.
It takes about two months to develop mini brains, in which thousands of exact copies can be created in each batch. As many as 100 mini brains can be grow in the same petri dish.
As reported by Tech Times, Hartung and his colleagues at the John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health developed the mini brains from human stem cells. These are so tiny that they are about the size of a common housefly.
Meanwhile, Hartung is applying for a patent on the mini brain. He is hoping to open a commercial venture called ORGANOME where researchers could order the mini brains online.
