The Fate of Toxicological Studies: From Animal Models to Stem Cell-based Methods

After the development of a new drug, it is compulsory to test its benefits as well as toxic effects before human implementation. In the past, animals were being used as standard models for drug toxicity testing, but animal testing arose many ethical concerns and controversies. To overcome these ethical hurdles, many non-animal toxicity models were developed to cope with the drug toxicity analysis, but certain limitations like interspecies barriers do not make them good models for drug toxicity studies.-. Due to their self-renewal and capacity to divide into multiple cell lineages, such as hepatocytes, cardiomyocytes, and neural cells, stem cells are being used to establish alternative approaches for toxicological studies. This makes them a potential resource in predictive toxicological studies without the limitations of interspecies boundaries. In-vitro toxicological models, such as Adult Stem Cells (ASCs), Embryonic Stem Cells (ESCs), and recently established Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells (iPSCs) are currently being used as alternatives to animal models. This chapter will discuss the journey of toxicity studies from animal models to in vitro stem cell-based toxicity models.