Engineering fully functional, integrated skeletal muscle

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There is an urgent and growing need for non-animal testing of biologically active agent?s across UK industry, government agencies and healthcare research. Currently, new research from tissue & cell engineering is generating increasingly complex forms of simple 3-Dimensional model tissues (potentially ?human?), which can be developed in the laboratory. These models can now provide us the opportunity to monitor how whole tissue responds to challenges (e.g. toxic chemicals) by replacing conventional animal testing. The key to this is first developing simple individual tissue models and then combining different models to generate normal tissue complexity. We have developed in our laboratories simple 3 dimensional individual models of muscle and nerve using collagen or fibrin as a support material; these are both naturally occurring proteins. We now propose to combine these models and develop a 3D muscle with nerve endings, grown in the laboratory, to test the effect of various drugs and chemicals for potential human use replacing traditional testing on animals. Our remit will be to assess whether this complex model can be developed and test if it will be able to replace animal testing in the future. The final aim is better testing with less use of animals.