2023-06-21 09:57:06
Doing without laboratory animals for biological research becomes possible in some cases. For the first time, a paper has just been published by scientists from EPFL and UNIGE without having recourse to the animal model.
A scientific team has succeeded in making progress in understanding a complex mechanism regulating the formation of early stage mouse embryos without using small rodents. For the first time, a paper on a subject such as embryogenesis was published mid-June in Nature Genetics without animal testing.
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Embryoids are cellular structures cultured from stem cells, displaying characteristics similar to those of an embryo. [Alexandre Meyran – EPFL]For thirty years, geneticist Denis Duboule, professor at EPFL, has been exploring the fundamental mechanisms of mammalian evolution in his Developmental Genomics Laboratory.
Until then, he had never been able to do without animal experiments: “We are starting to have protocols for producing what are called synthetic embryos, embryoids or pseudo-embryos, which are in fact biological objects which are made entirely from stem cells”, he explains at the microphone of La Matinale. “When you aggregate them – you make a little ball out of them – very curiously, these cells are able to self-organize into something that looks a lot like an embryo.”
It is not an embryo that might then become a mouse or a human being, but this pseudo-embryo allows many experiments to be carried out to understand how living organisms work.
alternatives to animals
For the geneticist, this is not the end of laboratory animals: “It is obvious that we cannot do without them. But the problem is not there. It is a question of being able to offer valid alternatives whenever we can do without them”, he underlines.
This in vivo mouse embryo was used to better understand the mechanisms of embryonic development in mammals and the reasons for certain malformations (Nov 4, 2019). [Catherine Leutenegger – Labo. de génomique du développement, Denis Duboule/EPFL]This model is also relatively simple and quick to use and cheaper than real mice.
It is necessary to “try to place in the scientific place of alternatives that lead scientists to think ‘For this particular experiment, I no longer need animals: I can do it in organoid, in embryoid’. Scientists are engulfed in these possibilities, in this whole field of organoidsmini-brains grown in-vitro”.
According to Denis Duboule, this field is extremely promising: “I am much more optimistic today than I was ten years ago regarding the possibility of using these alternative systems”.
The researcher estimates that many research groups will be able to do without animal experimentation in the medium term. However, for the time being, the animal model remains essential when it comes to visualizing the effect of a molecule on the system, particularly in the context of the development of therapies.
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Sujet radio: Bastien Confino
Web article: Stephanie Jaquet
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