Animal testing alternatives gain momentum
The gist
Cell biologist Donald Ingber's Harvard team built a human lung-on-a-chip that "breathed," published in 2010.
The tool is part of a wider shift toward animal-free safety testing.
How it unfolded
- 2008 (approx.)Ingber and colleagues at Harvard's Wyss Institute submitted a paper to Science describing a model human lung smaller than a USB stick that "breathed."
- 2010After Science editors rejected the paper and suggested running the tests in mice, the team ran those experiments and resubmitted; the study was published and has since been cited by nearly 5,400 other papers.
- 2021Dove worked with The Body Shop and more than 100 animal-protection organisations to support a European Citizens' Initiative calling on the European Commission to stop cosmetic animal testing; more than 1.2 million people signed.