• The importance of animal testing for drug discovery
  • Fatemeh Sadat Hosseini,1,*
    1. Faculty of Life Sciences and Biotechnology, Shahid Beheshti University, Tehran, Iran


  • Introduction: Animal models are used in medical research to help scientists understand how biological systems work in health and disease and to develop new treatments for diseases. They are used because they can mimic aspects of a biological process or disease found in humans, and also have led to several medical advancements for humans, such as vaccines and therapies. They enhance the safety of the products being released by testing their effects and side effects. They are biologically very similar to humans, sharing most of the DNA and many of the health problems. They allow constant and controlled environmental conditions, increasing the power to detect genetic effects and interactions. They enable the generation of complex and selective pedigrees for genetic analysis. They permit invasive and terminal experiments that are not possible with human subjects. They provide an opportunity to examine the complete life cycle of a disease or a condition.
  • Methods: Animal testing plays a crucial role in the development of new drugs for several reasons and the most important one is safety and efficacy. Before new drugs can be tested on humans, they must be evaluated for safety and efficacy in animal models. This helps to identify any potential toxic side effects and determine safe dosage levels. Biological similarity is another factor because Many animals, especially mammals like mice and rats, share significant genetic and physiological similarities with humans. Complex Interactions in animal models also provide a complete, whole-organism context that allows researchers to study the interactions between different biological systems. Ethical considerations are an important issue that Testing new drugs directly on humans without prior evidence of safety would be unethical. Animal testing helps to prevent human harm by providing preliminary safety data. Regulatory agencies, such as the FDA, require animal testing data before approving new drugs for human clinical trials.
  • Results: To improve medical ethics in, it is necessary for alternatives to be integrated instead of animals. there are some Recommendations for Alternatives to Animal Testing. Computer Simulation is the first one. The concept was developed by Denis Noble, and the system is currently enrolled in clinical settings. These simulations are used to test heart replacements and are also applied to explore human behavior. Various scholars provide that this model is more accurate than animal experiments because it uses human data to analyze diseases and make predictions. Stem cells are proper alternatives to the in vitro systems of disease testing and toxin evaluations. The experiments involve evaluation of embryonic stem cells that can be grown in Petri dishes. The Petri dishes can be placed in the cells, and after that the resulting components are placed under evaluation to help in the discovery of new medications. Stem cells are essential because they can differentiate into human tissues and make it possible to screen the suspected diseases. Biochips are majorly utilized in the cosmetics industry to minimize the number of animals used to test the level of toxicity in a product. Notably, 3D Images can take high-resolution pictures of human tissues, which are then analyzed with the help of various computer systems. The advantage of this model is characterized by its ability to customize the parts of the organism under consideration. Moreover, 3D images also develop prototype designs and materials that can be used to investigate the existing and future ailments.
  • Conclusion: Based on these data, it must be concluded that animal drug tests are important for testing new drugs. However, these days we can replace them with other methods. It is justifiable to use animals in experiments only when there are no alternatives, and the tests have significant benefits for humans.
  • Keywords: Animal testing, medical research, Safety, Nonclinical, Model organism.