Can Nanosensors Curb Experiments Some Call "Animal Cruelty?"

If rats could clap, they just might. That's because German scientists have developed a new technology they say could reduce the number of experiments that expose rats, mice, rabbits, and other animals to potentially harmful chemicals.

Some call such experiments "animal cruelty." Others say animal experimentation is essential because it helps catch dangerous chemicals before humans are exposed to them.

The technology makes use of so-called nanosensors, minute particles that test the health effects of chemicals not on living, breathing animals but on human and animal cells.

"We're basically using a test tube to study the effects of chemicals and their potential risks," Dr. Jennifer Schmidt, a researcher at Munich's Fraunhofer Research Institution for Modular Solid State Technologists, said in a written statement. "What we do is take living cells, which were isolated from human and animal tissue and grown in cell cultures, and expose them to the substance under investigation."

The nanoparticles are said to be harmless and able to pass through cell membranes. How do they reveal information about a cell's well-being? They contain fluorescent dyes that show changes in levels of adenosine triphosphate (ATP), a compound that cells use to store energy. High levels suggest robust health, low levels indicate the cells are being harmed.

Researchers simply add the nanoparticles to living cells and watch for tell-tale color changes using a special fluorescence microscope.

"We could in future use cancer cells to test the effectiveness of newly developed chemotherapy agents," Dr. Schmidt said. "If the nanosensors detect a low concentration of ATP in the cells, we'll know that the new treatment is either inhibiting tumor cell growth or even killing them."

Dr. Schmidt said the nanoparticles needed lots of additional testing, along with regulatory approval, before they'll be commercially available. And even if the sensors and similar approaches prove successful, experts say it's far-fetched to think that animal testing will go away entirely.

"I don't think it'll happen during my lifetime," Frankie Trull, president of the Foundation for Biomedical Research (which promotes responsible animal testing), told Time magazine in 2008. "People in the research community will be the first to tell you they still don't know enough about how the complex living organism works in order to duplicate it. Animals are not perfect. They're definitely not a perfect mimic of a human, but they're [still] as close as we're going to get without using a human."

RELATED: ANIMAL EXPERIMENTS YOU WON'T BELIEVE

Comments

[MrBlueBoyBlitz]

04:09 PM on 01/31/2012

Evil, Fxxed up, lacking empathy, understanding, basic humanity, and using poor justifications to basically torture other animals.
It makes me physically sick and angry that part of our race that basically runs the show in terms of scientific development, and ideology (in terms of rationality and reductionism) has so little comprehension of basic compassion, empathy and care. To only care about your own race to me is akin to someone who only cares about there own part of that race, family, creed, group or nation, I don't know what the world is to see other species as lower and less worthy of respect and compassion than the human race. Completely evil and disgusting.
Objectivity is so lacking as a way of thinking/being. We are primarily subjective creatures and objectivity is only a new recent phenomenon and it does not hold a big enough picture, reducing everything down, dehumanizing others and allowing us to more freely kill other, whatever that other may be.
In my opinion objectivity is a tool to be used to help navigate reality it can be useful in personal relations but it does not remotely compare to deep subjective empathy, which is so essential in our ever complexifiying world.
Scientists who test on animals and those that support them need to be trained in basic human empathy...in how to subjectively connect with other and see through the eyes of other, not see everything as just meaningless stuff.

[methodman]

02:28 PM on 01/15/2012

This is great. Yes there are building blocks. Probably the most public easy language I know of is called "Scratch" It is based on logo a children's programming language. But cs50.tv has a workflow video that explains why it is a good first language. This is very encouraging for animals and we ourselves can join in a limited by our understanding way; but that is where everyone begins.

[rpeterson2205]

01:41 PM on 01/12/2012

I am a biomedical engineering graduate student and am around a lot of animal testing. This article is in no way profound whatsoever. It's essentially, "Some scientists found an alternative to using an animal model for their experiment." Whoopdie doo. This happens all the time because we always want to find alternatives to using animal models because it is cheaper and more ethical.

[an seanchus mor]

04:51 PM on 01/12/2012

nothing wrong with that, its a mark of civilisation, especially the 'ethical' benefit.

[Spock]

12:43 PM on 01/13/2012

Before the animal rights movement began in 1975 scientists were not always looking for alternatives, at least not in the US. Things were probably a bit better in Europe. In 1997 Scientific American said sometimes scientists needed a little help from outside to steer them in a more ethical direction. I read a quote from Richard Leakey who said how scientists attitudes about animals had changed. At a Zoological society meeting he attended he heard speaker after speaker refer to animals as "other" as opposed to "lower." That was an important shift away from looking down on animals. Carl Sagan wrote that looking down on animals made it easier to use them in anyway you wanted without regard for their welfare. The animal rights movement changed that.

[rpeterson2205]

01:16 PM on 01/13/2012

Cool.

[cable1977]

10:31 AM on 01/16/2012

Unfortunately, the animal rights movement has also had a strong negative impact on scientific investigation as well with various threats and attacks against researchers and their families.

[cadawa]

04:48 PM on 01/11/2012

Irresponsbile animal testing is definitely a problem if the slide show is any indication. Some of these scientistst seem more like adolescent boys than grown men in the they tailor their experiments 'Let's see what happens'...with little thought to for the living being they are working with or the usefulness of the knowledge they may or may not gain.

[onewhothinks]

11:31 PM on 01/11/2012

The worst of those are very old tests, close to fifty years old. Standards have changed since then. The scientific method has improved. You will still get fringe crazy people doing horribly unnecessary tests, but for the most part modern experiments are probably well thought out, or at the very least within legal bounds. The sheep test would probably be the odd man out among the newer tests, but it does have a good reason behind it, as there has been quite some controversy over the use of tazers by police forces with regards to how lethal they actually are.

[cable1977]

08:19 AM on 01/12/2012

"with little thought to for the living being they are working with or the usefulness of the knowledge they may or may not gain."

Actually, if you knew ANYTHING about animal research, you would know that it is highly regulated and the type of research being performed must be evaluated by an independent commission at each institution known as an IACUC. This body evaluates the merits of the requested research as well as the pain or discomfort caused to any animals used. The higher the species, the more stringent the rules and regulations arae applied to the research.

But, I imagine, instead of dealing with the facts and realities of animal research, you will simply just continue with ad hominem attacks upon researchers.