Organ Simulator Could Cage Animal Testing

[Calliegirl]

Science is .

If you’re an activist who frequently stumps for PETA’s anti-cruelty campaigns outside of animal-testing laboratories, you have reason to rejoice.
Scientists are developing a desk-top machine that “plays” plug-in cassettes about the size of a USB memory stick designed to simulate the complicated mechanical and biochemical behaviors of human organs. The little devices could put the kibosh on animal testing, speed up drug development and make medicine more affordable.
Scientists hope the device, which could be as large as an office photocopier, will be ready for the market in five years.
“We’re moving very quickly to building a plug-in-and-play instrument that anyone can use,” lead scientist Professor Donald Ingber, founding director of the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University, told the UK Press Association.
Ingber and his colleagues have already produced and tested devices that accurately mimic the lung, heart, liver, kidney, intestine, pancreas, skin and bone marrow. Ingber’s “Lung-on-a-Chip” was recently awarded the NC3Rs 3Rs Prize from the UK’s National Center for the Replacement, Refinement and Reduction of Animals in Research...

http://news.discovery.com/tech/biotechnology/organ-simulator-could-cage-animal-testing-130227.htm

 

[ledboots]

So cool! Thanks for posting.

 

[CrazyCatLady]

I don't really understand it but it sounds good! Lol xxx

 

[FortyTwo]

So we can simulate perfectly on a very in-depth level the minute interactions of the organelles of a relatively complex bacterium to the point where it can technically be considered alive but we're JUST NOW getting around to simulating organs? And we need a special machine to do it?

Humans.