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Stuttgart (dpa) - Corona has fueled the development of alternative methods to animal experiments: Researchers are working on artificial organ models, computer simulations and imaging processes to make progress in the fight against the virus.
Experiments with lung or intestinal tissue can be carried out on special chips, as the neurobiologist Roman Stilling from “Understanding Animal Experiments”, an information initiative of science, explains.
“With these instruments, important findings have been and are already being gained - but they cannot yet completely replace the immune system of an entire organism,” says Stilling on the occasion of the International Day of Laboratory Animals on April 24th.
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This designation is too neutral for the association Doctors Against Animal Experiments.
"We call it the day for the abolition of animal testing," says Dilyana Filipova, research assistant at the organization.
From their point of view, Corona shows how effective alternative methods can be.
With the organ-like, three-dimensional models developed from human cells, the researchers have a suitable means for experiments in hand, explains the biologist. Such organoids already exist in around ten organs from the lungs to the heart to the kidneys. You could be infected with the coronavirus and then screened for immune response. In addition, a computer can be used to determine the tolerance of a new active ingredient in comparison with existing ones better than in animal experiments.
Neurobiologist Stilling points out that the organoids are not a complete substitute for the organism-wide immune system.
"Such methods can only be a supplement to animal experiments."
Nobody likes to do such experiments, but they are indispensable in the fight against serious diseases.
"Animal experiments can only be carried out if there is no alternative to answering a research question," says Stilling.
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Every attempt must go through an official approval process.
The vast majority of medical research, including Corona, is already taking place with cell cultures or in test tubes, says Stilling.
Filipova regrets that the state subsidy system does not support this trend.
"The development of animal-free research is funded with one percent of all funds."
The animal welfare officer Julia Stubenbord agrees with this. When it comes to the distribution of the funding, the focus is almost exclusively on research with animal experiments. But the development of alternative methods also requires equipment, material and personnel. "There are many good approaches that fall by the wayside because they can no longer be continued due to a lack of funding."
For reasons of cost, the trend among pharmaceutical companies is towards alternative methods.
"A single mouse mutant can cost several hundred euros," explains Stubenbord.
The universities, however, stuck to animal experiments.
This was shown, for example, by the deans' protest against a change in the state university law, which would mean the dissection of animals as part of the training of biologists, pharmacologists and veterinarians.
“It's also a generation problem,” says Stubenbord.
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According to the Federal Ministry of Agriculture, a total of two million vertebrates and cephalopods - such as octopuses - were used in animal experiments in 2019. Their severity is classified as low in 65 percent of cases - for example, if a blood sample is taken. The proportion of experiments with heavy loads was five percent. This includes, for example, lung examinations with mechanical ventilation. The total number of monkeys and semi-monkeys used in Germany in 2019 was 3276 at the previous year's level. Great apes have not been used in Germany since 1992.
The experimental animals used in research into vaccines and drugs against corona include primarily mice, but also rats and currently ferrets, hamsters and rhesus monkeys. The latter are susceptible to infection with Sars-CoV-2 and also develop symptoms such as pneumonia. "After the administration of the experimental vaccines, the animals were infected with the virus - but they were protected, an infection could not be detected," says "Understanding animal experiments".
Geneticist Filipova describes the tests for vaccines as completely superfluous: "No animal has this range of reactions to the virus as humans do from death to freedom from symptoms." Over 90 percent of all animal experiments in the clinical phase turned out to be inconclusive for the human body. Stilling, on the other hand, says: "Man is not a 70-kilo rat, but that does not mean that there are no transmissions." For example, the lymphatic system in mice is similar to that in humans. "Especially with the tests for the safety and effectiveness of vaccines, we see a very good predictive power of the animal experiments, for example with regard to the type of immune response."
Before Laboratory Animal Day, both sides intensified their communication: the “Understanding Animal Experiments” initiative launched an animal experiment compass.
The critics are launching a campaign to “deselect animal experiments” before the general election.
Will there ever be medical research without animal testing?
Filipova believes an exit is possible - «very soon».
Stilling sees it differently: "It is not foreseeable that there will be a method that can completely reproduce a living organism."
© dpa-infocom, dpa: 210423-99-319365 / 2
Info from the initiative
Experimental animal numbers
Doctors Against Animal Testing