Alternative methods to animal testing

Over the past few years, discussions on the benefits and the ethical justifiability of experiments on animals have led increasingly to a wide range of different, alternative methods being developed in this field. The websites of the information campaign entitled “Tierversuche verstehen” (“Understanding animal testing”) provide a good overview and more detailed information on alternative methods currently being used.

The development and implementation of other alternative methods are supported and promoted by, among others, the German Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), the German Ministry of Food and Agriculture (BMEL) and the German Research Foundation (DFG).

In any discussion on possible alternatives to animal testing, it must be remembered that most of the alternative methods are based on insights gained from animal experiments carried out previously. Currently, it is not yet possible to replace all animal testing in basic research. Despite all the efforts made, the alternative models already developed and established come up repeatedly against their limits, which means that, in the opinion of scientists, it is not yet possible to do without animal testing entirely.

With the aim of putting young researchers in touch with possible alternative methods at as early a stage as possible, students of Biology have, since 2006, been given an overview of such methods as part of an advanced module in their studies, and they have been carrying out, on their own, various established methods as alternatives to animal testing.