Question

Your local senator is calling for an immediate ban on all animal studies proposing that all experiments should be done using cell cultures. Explain to the senator why cell culture may not be adequate on their own and why it may be necessary for researchers to continue using experimental models like small rodents and fruit flies (Drosophila melanogaster) to fully understand human biochemical processes and diseases?

Answer 1

Cell culture gives an entire representation of the cells. Although the signalling pathways can be studied using cell systems with certain manipulations of the conditions to study different variables, however, significant researches on drugs are done to serve as therapeutic agents for the humans. Due to certain limitatuons of the human, like proloonged life cycle and reproductive characteristics, it is not used for a model. Instead the organisms which share evolutionary relatedness with human are frequently used for research purposes, pertaining to the following reasons:

The cell culture provides an idea of the drug on the cell as isolated units but provides no idea about its functioning in an integrated system.

The cell culture experiments cannot be used to understand the side effects or interference pathways of the drug as can be there inside the human body.

Hence, preclinical trials are extremely important which can be used to assess the degree of effectiveness of the drug on lower organisms, which further can be correlated to success when administered on higher organisms.

The influence of other organ systems on the system under study for which the drug has been designed can be studied in model organisms but not in cell.

The probable immune responses can be studied only after introduction into model organisms but not cells.

All these avenues necessitates the provision of pre-clinical trials before massive application on the human.