this post was submitted on 19 May 2024
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The problem with testing on organs or tissues is that you won't be able to see side-effects that affect unrelated organs. Maybe a stroke medicine increases the risk of internal bleeding or heart failure. Currently, medicines are tested on human tissue (HeLa lines - there's another sad story behind them, but I digress), and, if they pass, on mice. Only once they pass both are they even tested on humans.
What stops them from testing on unrelated organs? If you want to know if a stroke medicine increases the risk of heart failure, test it on heart tissue. If you want to know if it increases the risk of internal bleeding, grow gastrointestinal tract and blood vessels to test it.
That's not enough. The medicine may contain chemical A, which is broken down into B and C by the digestive system. B breaks up blood clots in the brain, but the liver converts it into D, which causes internal bleeding. Also C can damage the heart, but only if you are old.
Testing A on any tissue will not show any benefit to reducing clotting. Conversely, testing B on brain, liver and blood vessel samples will not show any risk, because it needs to first go through the liver and then reach blood vessels. And finally, unless you have an animal with a short lifespan (such as a mouse), you won't see the effects on infants, the old, pregnant females, etc.
And we couldn't construct a holistic cloned testing environment that can break A down into B and C and D, and then observe the effects? So you aren't just testing it on isolated tissue samples, but on entire cloned systems with all of the interactions of an actual human body?
That's not something possible at the moment, I understand that. I just think it would be better to focus all of our efforts on making it possible.
I've seen how this turns out.