TESTING
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Truly animal-free approach to safety testing
Chris Longmore, Dr Carol Treasure - XCellR8
Over the past 30 years, opposition to the use of animals to assess the safety of cosmetics has grown to become the default position not only in the cosmetics industry, but also significant sections of society. For many, the key moment arrived on 11
March 2013 with the implementation of a full ban on animal testing in the European Union acting as culmination of years of consumer & industry demand, scientific advancement, regulatory validation, and political cooperation. It was hoped that this ban would lead the way in providing a framework for the replacement of animal tests in other regions globally and, in time, other industries. Nearly a decade on, approximately 80%
of countries still test cosmetic products on animals. Even within the EU, animal testing still takes place on cosmetic ingredients due to conflicting requirements between regulations.
The most notable of these is REACH
(Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals), which can require the use of certain animal tests where no validated alternative is available. Recent rulings by ECHA (European Chemicals Agency) requiring the use of animal tests to ensure the requirements of REACH have been met may pose a risk to the ultimate effectiveness of the ban.
Viable replacements for animal testing
With much of the conversation rightly focusing on what we wish to avoid – namely, tests using animals and animal- derived products - discussing the available replacements is often overlooked. The most common approach is the use of in vitro tests using cells or tissue models. In vitro literally translates as ‘in glass’ and
refers to studies performed using biological components outside of the body - e.g. in test tubes, flasks or plates. These in vitro laboratory experiments seek to model an event we would find in vivo – i.e. in a living body - and use the results to make predictions on what we would see in the body. For example, a formulation may be
applied to human eye corneal tissue which was grown in a lab, and the results used to predict whether the item is likely to be irritating to the eyes.
www.personalcaremagazine.com
Figure 1: Human epidermal keratinocyte cells observed using confocal microscopy. Many different types of cells can be cultured in a laboratory and used for safety and efficacy tests but growing them in conditions completely free of animal-derived products can be a challenge
At the developmental stage, the tests are
often compared to historic animal data and are only accepted if the predictivity is as good as or greater than the existing animal tests. It is widely proven and accepted however, that animal testing does not always give us accurate predictions and results! Our work focuses on pursuing the science
that will end the reliance on animal data once and for all. No live animal testing, no animal derived products, not even using historic animal data to validate non-animal tests.
When animal-free is not 100% free from animals Many alternatives to animal-testing still use animal-derived components that can necessitate animal sacrifice or additional suffering, resulting in a profound question; does animal-free necessarily mean cruelty- free? Just because live animals are not used can we really make this claim? This issue is not raised to discredit work that has been completed to develop accurate tests which prevent the use of living animals, but to highlight that still more can be done to completely replace the use of animals in the testing of cosmetics ingredients and formulations. The most common animal-component
used within in vitro testing is foetal bovine serum (FBS). As the name suggests, FBS is blood serum obtained from a bovine (cow) foetus and is most regularly used as a growth supplement in cell culture (the cultivation of cells used for in vitro tests). Although it has been suggested that FBS is
a by-product of the meat industry, it is argued that the cardiac puncture used to collect FBS causes additional animal suffering. In addition to the ethical concerns associated with FBS, its scientific robustness has been a matter of discussion. Natural, inherent variation between individual cows from which FBS is collected and pooled, raises concerns regarding batch- to-batch variation of FBS, which could impact cell culture and the accuracy of in vitro assays using these cells. Similar concerns have been noted with
the use of animal-derived antibodies, tissue extracts, enzymes, and other products. With increased demand coming from consumers and industry for sustainable, ethical products - and, by association, ethical testing - coupled with a drive from the scientific community for chemically defined and reproducible reagents, it seems increasingly likely that truly animal-free testing also needs to be 100% animal-product-free.
June 2022 PERSONAL CARE
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