How will advances in tissue bioengineering lead to reduced use of preclinical animal models for drug development?
This was selected as Best Answer Hi Edward, In certain applications tissue bioengineering will reduce the use of animal models at early stage of drug development. It is possible to do some toxicity screening in vitro using artificial scaffolds or cultured tissues. However, this will be only very basic screen. To fully evaluate the drugs the use of an animal model is essential, because the interplay between tissues and organs cannot be replicated in vitro. Therefore while there can be potentially slight reduction we should not expect a large reduction in use of animal models for drug development.
