Mucosa Invitro Assay

Since the mid-1980’s efforts to achieve a reduction in animal testing have slowly been gaining momentum in Europe. This was initiated by pressure applied from animal welfare groups, public opinion and ethical debates. In 1986, an EU directive on the protection of animals used for experimental purposes (Directive 86/609/EEC [European Commission (1986), 1986] banned the use of an animal experiment when a scientifically approved alternative exists. The 7th Amendment to the Cosmetics Directive (Directive 76/768/EEC) foresees a complete ban on animal testing for cosmetic ingredients from 2009 for all the human health-related effects. Finally, inconsistent with the above mentioned directives, the REACH legislation (Registration, Evaluation and Authorization of Chemicals [European Regulation (2006), 2006] will soon be implemented, resulting in an increase in the number of animal experiments to be carried out for risk assessment of nearly 30,000 chemicals already marketed in the EU. All in all, this has resulted in a huge stimulus to develop new in vitro techniques to replace animal testing for both the scientific and industrial community [Goldberg and Hartung T., 2006].