Animal testing to be replaced with robots

Humans testing hazardous chemicals on live animals could soon turn into robots testing hazardous chemicals on laboratory-grown cells. The advantages of using robots for the tests involve greatly increasing the number of tests that can be performed daily, in addition to greatly lowering the costs because of the exclusion of animal subjects.

Identifying toxic chemicals has classically been a tedious process. Animals are injected or exposed to the chemical, scientists wait, and if the animals get sick or some harm can be identified via microscope then the chemical is deemed unsafe for humans. The method has worked decently well in the past, although it is not always great at identifying if a chemical will be harmful to humans and not lab animals.

The new robot method would allow over 10,000 chemical tests to be performed daily, as opposed to the 10-100 yearly we get now. And, we get to save all of those innocent bunnies!