Although I am a psychologist by trade and have spent most of my career studying relationships I am always fascinated by how technology can change a science and solve an ethical dilemma. Take, for example, animal experimentation. While I have never done animal experiments I have talked to many researchers who have and constantly struggle with the balance of doing science that can have huge benefits (for example the vaccine for polio was tested in animals first) and the rights and welfare of the animals. This debate has raged all over the world, most pointedly in Europe, where the EU will ban the use of animals in cosmetic testing early in 2009.

Now there is word of a new technological development that may signal the end of animal testing in all cosmetic testing. Two chemical engineering professors Jonathan Dordick (Rensselaer Polytechnic) and Douglas Clark (UC Berkeley) have developed a small rectangular glass chip that can test if a substance is toxic to human cells. The glass chips contain different types of human cells: liver, bladder, kidney, heart, skin, or lung, and mimic a human body’s response to a new substance. If the cells die, or stop growing when exposed, then the substance is toxic to humans.

The upside of this advance is obvious: fewer animals will be subjected to testing. And it may even provide a better test of how toxic a substance is to humans. These chips use human cells which will, hopefully, show how a human would respond to the toxin rather than how a rat or rabbit would respond. Pretty neat….

Further Reading:

(January 28, 2008). Chips could put lab rats out of work. CNN.