Lab-grown ‘mini-brains’ could help replace #animal #testing [#geekgirl]

Researchers in the US have developed tiny, partly functional ‘mini-brains’ in the laboratory, grown from human cells. These tiny replicas won’t only give scientists a better way of testing drugs – they could also help save huge numbers of animals from enduring the hardship of experimental tests.

Official figures suggest more than 800,000 animals are used in experiments every year in the US alone, and that’s not counting animals used in agricultural experiments, nor an estimated 100 million mice and rats also used in testing annually. If these mini-brains – which are expected to enter production in 2016 – can replace even a fraction of those numbers, it’s a win for animals, and should deliver better results for scientists at the same time.

Source: Science Alert

DO NOT USE PRODUCTS THAT USE ANIMALS FOR RESEARCH & TESTING.