Stem Cells Offer New Alternative to Animals for Skin Tests

Human stem cells can be converted into skin cells and grown in 3-D culture, according to a new publication in Stem Cell Reports, offering another replacement for animal tests.

Up until now, scientists have used cells from skin samples as an efficient alternative to animal tests for drug development and testing. However, one sample of skin provides a limited number of cells. In this new report, researchers state that using stem cells allowed them to produce human skin cell cultures, in a technique that can likely be scaled up so that many cultures can be produced from each sample.

This technology may represent a new source of human skin cell cultures, providing researchers with increased access to reliable, human-relevant methods for drug and cosmetics testing.