Young researchers

How can the needs of scientific research converge with the ethical respect of all animal species, not just humans? With the ” organ on chip ” experimentation, three young scientists transplanted to the Netherlands –  Cinzia Silvestri ,  Niko Gaio (Italian) and William Fausto Quiros Solano (Costa Rican)  – have created a very special start-up to try to create a concrete alternative to experimentation animal.

Animal experimentation: ethical and scientific perspectives

The stated goal is to try to eliminate animal testing without lowering the safety and result standards  of drug testing.

This is why the BI / OND start-up, born with European funding from the Horizon 2020 program , has worked on a model of an avatar of a human organ. It is not only an ethical perspective , based on animal rights thinking, but also and above all for its scientific perspective .

As is well known, while representing an irreplaceable tool and methodology up to now, animal testing is never 100% reliable , on the contrary: the most accurate estimates tell us that only 10% of drugs and treatments that are successful on a animal guinea pig demonstrates the same results on humans. 

Versatile biological platforms

What the start-up BI / OND , supported by Dutch universities, proposes is to create ad hoc organs with human cells grown around a microchip of one square centimeter, which guides them towards the desired organ behavior, giving it specific characteristics. BI / OND in fact stands for “bio on demand” , or versatile biological platforms created on request for specific research, able to simulate a heart, a lung or any other organ.

Thanks to advanced nanotechnologies made available to cell culture , these young scientists are opening new avenues that help to do without animals by creating new, more ethical and more performing models of in vitro research, especially for diseases that are particularly difficult to fight with only the support of usual animal testing, such as ALS.

This last topic is the area of ​​study of Alessandro Polini :  researcher of the CNR Nanotec of Lecce where the “Technopole of nanotechnology applied to Precision Medicine” is based, a platform activated thanks to an important funding from the Puglia Region. Polini won the 2018 LushPrize  for the development of alternative ideas to animal experimentation dedicated to the study of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, a research sector carried out by the technopole.

Animal testing, an eye on savings

One more reason to invest in this type of technology? The reduction of costs : raising animals for scientific disappearance is an impractical solution, not very reliable, but above all very expensive and very slow.

It is estimated that the experimentation on animals of each drug requires investments of around two million euros and ten-year work to be able to give results.

Saving in the trial phase means above all  a lowering of the final cost of the drug to the consumer . In vitro and in vivo research finally seem to have found an opportunity to successfully overlap.