The Covid-19 crisis highlighted certain economic and welfare issues associated with using animals for research. Pandemic-related closures meant that many labs had to halt experiments and euthanize animals. Then, the race to develop vaccines and treatments for Covid-19 meant monkeys were in short supply due to huge demand.
While alternative methods are promising, they’re still relatively new. Methods for developing organ chips, organoids, and computer models also vary from lab to lab, making it difficult to draw broad conclusions about their accuracy.
Boston biotech company chip Emulate, co-founded by Ingber, is testing how well its liver-on-a-chip device does at flagging the presence of dangerous chemicals. Lorna Ewart, the company’s chief scientific officer, says
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