The US Just Greenlit High-Tech Alternatives to Animal Testing

A researcher preparing to perform an intraperitoneal injection on mice.Marcos del Mazo/LightRocket/Getty This story was originally published by Wired and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Animal testing has long been necessary for a drug to gain approval by the US Food and Drug Administration--but it may be on its way out. A new law seeks to replace some lab animal use with high-tech alternatives. The FDA Modernization Act 2.0, signed by President Biden at the end of December with widespread bipartisan support, ends a 1938 federal mandate that experimental drugs must be tested on animals before they are used in human clinical trials. While the law doesn't ban animal testing, it allows drugmakers to use other methods, such as microfluidic chips and miniature tissue models, which use human cells to mimic certain organ functions and structures.