Bioinformatics and Beyond: March 2024

Hello!

It's the first of March (how did that happen?!) so it's time for another edition of Bioinformatics and Beyond!

This issue is going to focus on one very important benefit of bioinformatics analysis. There are, of course, lots of reasons why bioinformatics is beneficial to science and society in general, but I'm focusing on this one because it is cute and fluffy ??

How bioinformatics helps reduce the need for animal testing

There are various direct and indirect ways in which bioinformatics helps reduce animal testing. Let's took a look at these below:

Replacing animal models in research

Animals are widely used for research purposes, particularly in the pharmaceutical industry where they are referred to as animal models. However, bioinformatics enables the creation of in-silico models (computer models) which can sometimes be used in place of animal models. Since in-silico models can simulate biological processes such as protein-protein interactions, they can help researchers to predict how substances will behave in humans. This can help reduce the need for animal testing for this purpose.

Pathway analysis

Bioinformatics tools can identify and analyse the biological pathways affected by different substances. Since this information helps researchers to understand how drugs might impact the human body this is another area where bioinformatics can replace, or reduce the need for, animal testing.

Comparative Genomics

Bioinformatics approaches allow comparisons to be made between the genomic data of animals and humans. Since this helps us to better understand the similarities and differences between humans and animals, it can also help prevent animal testing where it would not be beneficial.

Breeding Optimisation in Agriculture

The agriculture industry can use bioinformatics tools to analyse genetic information in order to optimise breeding programs. Using bioinformatics in this way, can reduce the need for animal testing to assess the traits of livestock.

Toxicity Prediction

When pharmaceutical companies develop drugs, they need to ensure the drug won’t be toxic to those who take it. They ensure this via toxicity prediction studies. Toxicity prediction studies often use animal testing to assess the harmful effects of substances in living organisms. However, with bioinformatics we can analyse genomic and proteomic data to help predict how toxic a substance will be. Therefore, bioinformatics can reduce the need for animal testing to assess toxicity.

Toxicity is also a concern within the chemical industry. By enabling the analysis of chemical structures and the potential toxic effects they could have, bioinformatics can reduce the need for animal testing in chemical safety evaluation.

These are just some of the ways that bioinformatics approaches can help reduce the need for animal testing across different industries. One industry I haven't mentioned so far is the cosmetics industry. Many countries, including those in the European Union and United Kingdom, have banned the use of animal testing for cosmetic product development. However, since it occurs in some other countries, it is worth mentioning how bioinformatics models can replace animal models within cosmetic development. With bioinformatics models, researchers can predict skin and eye irritation potential via the analysis of chemical structures. Therefore, the cosmetics industry can use such models to replace animal testing for assessing a cosmetic product’s irritation potential.

In addition to reducing the need for animal testing, there are various other ways in which bioinformatics can advance cosmetic development research. If you are interested, you can learn about these here.

Well that's nearly the end of this newsletter, but since this edition was all about animals, I'll tell you an interesting animal fact before you go.

Of the around 11,000 species of birds, the hummingbird is the only one that can fly backwards for a sustained length of time. This is because they a have ball and socket joint which allows their wings to have a greater span of movement. They can also fly upside down!

Thanks for reading!

-Breige McBride,?Content and Social Media Manager, Fios Genomics