Government presents plan to phase out animal testing

The government has detailed for the first time how it intends to deliver on its manifesto commitment to work towards phasing out animal testing.

The new plans call for replacing animal testing with some major safety tests by the end of this year and reducing the use of dogs and non-human primates in human drug testing by at least 35% by 2030.

The Labor Party said in its manifesto that it would “join scientists, industry and civil society to work to phase out animal testing”.

Science Minister Lord Vallance told BBC News he could imagine a day when the use of animals in science was almost completely eliminated, but acknowledged it would take time.

Animal testing in the UK peaked at 4.14 million in 2015, mainly due to a sharp increase in genetic modification experiments – mainly on mice and fish.

By 2020, this number had fallen to 2.88 million thanks to the development of alternative methods. But since then, this decline has stabilized.

Lord Vallance told BBC News he wanted to restart the rapidly declining trend by replacing animal testing with experiments on animal tissue grown from stem cells, AI and computer simulations.

Asked by BBC News if he could envisage a world where animal testing was “close to zero”, he replied: “I think it’s possible, it’s not possible in the near future, the idea that we can eliminate the use of animals in the near future, I don’t think it exists.”

“Can we get really close? I think we can. Can we push faster than we have been? I think we can. Should we? We absolutely should.”

“Now is the time to really understand this and promote these alternative approaches,” he said.

Under detailed new government plans, by the end of 2025, scientists will stop using animals for some major safety tests and switch to new laboratory methods using human cells instead.

As the government’s former chief scientific adviser and former research director for a major pharmaceutical company, he knows that many scientists believe it will be extremely difficult to achieve a “near-zero” level of animal testing, even in the long term. This includes those who are the biggest advocates of non-animal methods.

“I firmly believe this is not possible for safety reasons,” said Professor Frances Balkwill, of the Barts Cancer Institute at Queen Mary University of London.

Professor Balkwill is working to find ways to stop ovarian cancer from recurring, using mice as well as non-animal approaches, of which she is a big fan.

“These non-animal methods will never replace the complexity we can see when a tumor grows in an entire organism, like a mouse,” she said.

One of the world’s leading centers for developing alternatives to animal testing is the Center for In Vitro Predictive Models (CPM) at Queen Mary University of London.

Researchers here are developing extraordinary “organs-on-a-chip” technology, conjuring up alarming images of pulsing brains and beating hearts sitting atop electronic circuits.

The reality, however, is much less science fiction.

Some small pieces of glassware containing tiny samples of human cells from different organs of the body, such as the liver or brain, are connected to electrodes that send information to a computer.

What’s amazing, said CPM co-director Professor Hazel Screen, is that cells from different parts of the body can be connected together to mimic the way different organs work together.

“In theory, you can build any organ on a chip. Then I can use it to test a new drug,” she said.

“And because we’re taking human cells, we should be able to do higher quality scientific research.”

Safety tests that the government says will no longer use animals by the end of this year include the practice of giving rabbits a small dose of a new drug – called a pyrogen test. He says this will be replaced by a test using human immune cells in a dish.

All tests using animals to detect the presence of dangerous germs in medicine will also be carried out using cellular and genetic technologies, the government says.

Between 2026 and 2035, the government plans to accelerate the use of non-animal techniques, including organs-on-a-chip and artificial intelligence.

The proposals group animal testing into two main groups: those that could be immediately replaced because safe and effective alternatives already exist and simply require updating laws or guidelines; and others, where alternatives exist, but have yet to be tested to prove that they are reliable enough to be widely used.

To accelerate the latter, the government plans to create a Center for the validation of alternative methods.

Ministers also promise to provide an unspecified increase in funding and investment for the development of new alternatives, including £30 million for a research center and more grants to support innovative methods and training.

The RSPCA welcomed the plan cautiously, describing it as a “significant step forward”, but urged the government to implement it.

Some scientists working on animal testing, such as Professor Robin Lovell-Badge, are deeply concerned about what they fear is a premature push toward alternatives and its potential negative consequences for science and medicine.

“What about the brain and behavior? How can you study behavior in a petri dish? It’s just not possible,” he says.

“In complex areas of biology where no current non-animal models come close to real biology, how will pushing this strategy help?”