Alternatives to animal testing: surrogate organs developed for toxicity testing

    A new project could revolutionize the way we select new drugs and toxic agents. It is called ATHENA (Advanced Tissue-engineered Human Ectypal Network Analyzer) and consists in the creation of surrogate human organs, 4 in particular: liver, heart, lung and kidneys, interconnected and based on a miniaturized platform.



    He is about to end up run over, his mother saves him



    A new project could revolutionize the way we select new drugs and toxic agents. Is called ATHENA (Advanced Tissue-engineered Human Ectypal Network Analyzer) and consists of the creation of surrogate human organs, 4 in particular: liver, heart, lung and kidneys, interconnected and based on a miniaturized platform.

    Each organ will be the size of a smartphone screen and the whole ATHENA “body”, called “homo minutus” could be placed comfortably on a simple desk. Funded over the next 5 years with 19 million dollars by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, will provide a realistic, low-cost and rapid alternative to toxicity testing, offering a greater chance of success for clinical trial.

    Ricercatrice Rashi Iyer, of the Los Alamos National Laboratory, he explains:

    “By creating a dynamic system that more realistically imitates the human physiological environment compared to static human cells in test tubes, we will be able to understand the chemical effects on human organs like never before. The ultimate goal is to build a lung that breathes, a heart that pumps, a liver that metabolizes and a kidney that excretes - all connected by a very infrastructure of tubes that mimics the functioning and connections of blood vessels to our organs. While some skeptics might believe it is utopia, the team is confident it is truly achievable ”.

    Alternatives to animal testing: surrogate organs developed for toxicity testing

    When we consider that about 40 percent of drugs fail in clinical trials, Iyer notes, and that there are thousands of chemicals whose effects on humans are simply unknown, it is easy to see how important Athena's contribution could be. And there would be millions and millions, we add, the animals spared from terrible suffering and death.



    Roberta Ragni


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