Laboratory rat in a test tube

Rats will be replaced with stem cells Alexandra Borisova, "Newspaper.
Ru" based on materials Eurekalert.org : A lab rat – created in the lab

All medicines, without exception, must undergo preliminary animal testing. This is the law, despite the fact that conservationists note a serious moral and ethical conflict that such an approach provokes. The need for animal testing is due to the fact that only in this way it is possible to trace how the drug acts on living tissue similar to human tissues. However, Israeli specialists in tissue culture technologies offer an alternative approach that provides pharmacology with the necessary material for drug testing, and "green" ones with peace of mind.

The paper published in Tissue Engineering talks about the possibility of growing whole animal tissue from individual cells. (The picture shows laboratory–grown adipose tissue cells, colored orange.)

Professor Amit Gefen's group, working at the Faculty of Engineering at Tel Aviv University, hopes that their research will be successfully applied in the work of physicians and pharmacists and will eventually lead to a noticeable reduction in the number of experimental animals.

"Medicines improve the quality of our life, and fundamental science is necessary to conduct new drugs through clinical research. But everyone knows perfectly well that a large number of animals are sacrificed to science at laboratory facilities both for the purposes of fundamental research and in practical work to study the effects of certain molecules on the body. As a medical researcher, I myself depended on animal experiments to test my assumptions. Until recently," Professor Gefen said.

Professor Gefen's group, working at the intersection of biology and technology, now only needs to use adult rat stem cells that can stimulate the growth of skin, bone, fat and muscle tissue similar to the tissue of a living being used in a laboratory installation. Now they are already using the grown tissue in their work on the study of the mechanical properties of bedsore ulcers, where a large number of samples of living tissue, usually obtained from rodents, are simply needed. However, now the need to kill hundreds and thousands of animals has disappeared, at least for this group of scientists. The experiment is conducted without loss of life of animals.

"The use of artificially grown tissues is perhaps even more effective than the use of live animal tissues. The model we have created offers researchers a very reliable method of establishing "feedback" with living cells on issues of both basic science and research of new drugs. We can create fabric in a well-controlled environment and for a clearly specific purpose. For example, it is possible to create muscle tissue without blood vessels, which will eliminate a number of variables, the influence of which is difficult to take into account in a normal experiment," explained Professor Gefen.

Of course, it is impossible to obtain adult rat stem cells without destroying a certain number of rodents. However, according to the calculations of the authors of the work, 5% of the number of animals used in experiments to date is enough to extract stem cells. "It's a matter of scale. Our method can save a huge number of lives," said Professor Gefen.

Now his group is working to bring together disparate areas of research from different branches of mechanics, tissue culture and biology. In addition, work is underway to create a model system for researchers dealing with the problem of fat accumulation in cells (in particular, diabetes specialists), as well as drugs for weight loss. A model has also been developed that will help doctors assess the scale of the mechanical impact exerted on the human foot, buttocks or other soft tissues. Another model measures the degree of loss of sensitivity in a diabetic limb. All these samples make it possible to significantly reduce the number of animals needed for laboratory research using tissue culture methods.

"Already now we can create a number of "simplified" living tissues quite quickly. At the same time, we can keep them "alive. They are genetically similar to the biological tissue of an animal, so we can now put aside psychological elements in the work, such as bleeding and pain. The fact that the tissue is genetically identical to the natural one, and the conditions of its formation are clearly controlled, means that we can obtain a much higher reproducibility of experimental data than can even theoretically be achieved on animals," added Professor Gefen.

In the future, his group hopes that similar models can be created on the basis of human tissues. Experiments on such models will be even more effective, however, years of work are needed to grow such tissues.

Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru 14.04.2010