Fate of Animal Models in Preclinical Studies

Animal models provide great complexity compared to simple cell culture, but still, they struggle in recapitulating the human physiology. Despite these shortcomings, animal models have been continuously used for preclinical studies for over a century.

For a significant amount of time, preference for animal models was a necessity as they were the best options for preclinical trials. However, with advancements in microfabrication technology, microfluidic Organ-on-a-Chip has started to offer excellent alternatives in recent years.

Organ-on-Chip systems use human tissues from patients. Hence, they can more accurately mimic the numerous in-vivo human physiological mechanisms, which brings us closer to personalized medicine.

As many as 90% of drugs entering human clinical trials fail to get approval from the FDA. Sometimes they are not much effective, and many a time, they are toxic. The preclinical models should be able to identify these lacunas even before these drugs reach patients in human trials.

The advancements in Organ-on-Chip technology promise better models to recapitulate the pathophysiology and micro-physiological environment. This will have an immense impact on #drugdiscovery and #personalizedmedicine .

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