I’ve written before about MatTek and SkinEthic’s skin equivalents (which are synthetically made pieces of skin that toxicologists can use instead of live animals to test how irritating chemicals in beauty products are to human skin — they cause fewer animals to suffer and they’re actually better because they’re based on human skin, which is a better gauge of how irritating a chemical is to a human than rabbit skin). I’ve also written about how L’Oreal is going to go cruelty-free in a few years through the use of such skin equivalents.
Anyway, scientists at the University of Missouri-Columbia’s Comparative Orthopaedic Laboratory have now gone beyond skin equivalents, and have invented joint-equivalents. Isn’t that cool? Unfortunately right now they’re using dog tissue to create the joints, which I think is crazy because they could use human tissue — they basically take small bits of dog cartilage or joint tissue that was discarded from previous surgeries, and grow the bits together so the different cells can “communicate with each other” the way cells would in a real joint. (I can’t help but be suspicious that these discarded bits of cartilage/joint tissues from other surgeries were really discarded from inhumane, unnecessary surgeries performed on perfectly healthy dogs — this research was done in a veterinary research laboratory, and I think scientists at veterinary research laboratories cut up healthy animals and perform invasive surgeries on them all day. That’s how surgical scientific knowledge is furthered, to my knowledge.)
However, once these researchers start making these joint-equivalents from human tissue I can really see how valuable they will be. Joint-equivalents can be used to study the “causes and mechanisms for the development and progression” of arthritis, which is a horrible disease, usually involving inflammation, damage, or infection to the joints. Arthritis is also the leading cause of disability of Americans over the age of 55. Eventually this greater understanding of the development and progression of joint inflammation, damage, and infection could lead to a cure for arthritis. Researchers can also put pressure on the joint-equivalents in a way that mimics walking or running and see exactly how the joint-tissue works to repair itself, so they can determine methods to help athletes recover from stressing their joints — and this might be helpful to arthritis-sufferers too. They can also bathe the joint-equivalents in solutions containing nutritional supplements or pharmaceuticals and determine whether those help the joint-tissue repair itself. Dr. James Cook, professor of veterinary medicine and surgery, and researcher at the University of Missouri-Columbia’s Comparative Orthopaedic Laboratory, where the joint-equivalent was created, is quoted as saying:
“Using the joints in the test tubes will allow for greater flexibility when studying arthritis. We can test literally hundreds of different loads on joints in a single day and show results in real time. It is strengthening our research as we are able to explain data on a molecular level and then translate it to what happens to people and pets that struggle with arthritis every day. These in vitro models also provide a much safer mechanism for investigating new drugs and therapies. If severe side effects occur, all we have do is assess what has happened to the tissues rather than trying to treat a laboratory animal or a patient with an adverse reaction.”
While I’m really, really thrilled that these joint-equivalents are viable, I find it especially interesting that Dr. Cook describes the joint-equivalent as enabling scientists to test hundreds of different loads on joints in a single day. It’s obviously true — without it, they would have to request a number of laboratory dogs from the (evil) laboratory animal facility on campus, sign a lot of forms, and then they would only receive 30 or so laboratory dogs (usually beagles) if their request goes through a few weeks later, then the researchers would try to stress the joints of the dogs by making the dogs run too hard or give them debilitating poisons that would eat away at their joints, and after a few weeks the researchers would euthanize the dogs and dissect their joints to see how damaged they became. (If the dogs didn’t suffer a severe side-effect or adverse reaction and have to be euthanized ahead of time.) It would take a lot more time, cost a lot more money (and be a lot more inhumane) than using a joint-equivalent.
I only hope SkinEthic and MatTek (or perhaps the Comparative Orthopaedic Laboratory?) start creating the joint-equivalents on a large scale soon!
Tags : , Comparative Orthopaedic Laboratory, Dr. James Cook, University of Missouri-Columbia
