How AI could replace animal testing

Scientists across Europe are combining AI, human cells and mini-organs to predict chemical harm, reducing the need for testing on animals. By Anthony King Around 150,000 animals, mostly rats and mice, are used in the EU each year to test the safety of everyday chemicals, but that is starting to change. Animal welfare campaigners have long raised concerns about this practice, and questions remain over how well results from animals translate to humans. Researchers have therefore set out to design more reliable, less invasive testing methods, building on the EU’s earlier ban on animal testing for cosmetics.

“Companies must register and prove that their substances are safe in order to access the European market,” said Professor John Colbourne, a biologist specialising in environmental genomics at the University of Birmingham, UK, where he also directs the Centre for Environmental Research and Justice. That obligation comes from REACH, the EU regulation governing chemical safety, which also commits Europe to the so-called three Rs: replacing animal tests where possible, reducing the numbers of animals used for testing, and refining procedures to minimise animal suffering. Colbourne led one of three closely linked research initiatives working since 2021 from different angles towards the same goal: replacing chemical safety testing on animals with non-animal approaches, including in vitro and AI-driven methods. The research was carried out as part of ASPIS, the EU’s €60 million research cluster on next-generation chemical safety testing. EU law states that animals should be used only as a last resort. But reducing animal testing is also about human safety, as well as animal welfare. “Maybe 50 per cent of the animal tests we do are representative for humans,” said Mathieu…