National Antivisection Society
New toxicity testing application set to save thousands of mice and guinea pigs
29 January 2010
US company Hurel, along with funding from cosmetics giant L’Oreal, have announced an innovative new toxicty testing application that is set to replace thousands of mice and guinea pigs used to text the toxicity of cosmetics.
Hurel’s patented Allergy Test on a Chip is an in vitro substitute for the widely used Loval Lymph Node Assay (LLNA), which is performed on mice. The device integrates reconstructed human skin cells on a chip with a cell culture that enables an immunological response to be detected and analaysed when an unknown chemical stimulus is applied. This enables the allergic response of chemicals to be observed in a physiologically relevant manner without an animal component.
Using non-animal in vitro aleternatives such as the Hurel device avoids the species differences arising from the physiological and immunological differences between humans and animals. Not only is the Hurel Allergy Test more ethical and relevant to humans, but it is also a cheaper and faster method for testing chemicals. The product is still undergoing final development, but has so far passed testing strategies and a working prototype should be available by the latter half of 2011. Hurel was founded in 2005, and since then has been developing tools that will provide researchers with more human-relevant data on the toxicity of chemicals such as drugs, cosmetics, household cleaners and pesticides.
These steps are vital in order to comply with the European Union regulations which call for a phase out of animal skin testing by 2013, and so companies need to make huge efforts to ensure their product safety testing is humane, ethical and scientifically robust.
