A scientifically validated solution in toxicity assessment
Currently existing biological testing strategies still involve an extensive animal experimentation in vertebrate models, which is expensive and is associated with a number of important ethical concerns and regulatory constraints. The alternative methods to animal testing are typically based on cellular models. The main limitation of these in vitro techniques is that they cannot predict complex responses at the level of an organism, usually involving a multi-organ crosstalk. Caenorhabditis elegans (C. elegans) has been known for more than 60 years as a powerful model organism in fundamental research, allowing exploration of different facets of aging, development, neurosciences and genomics.
This nematode gained popularity amongst the scientific community due to its small size, short life cycle, ease of cultivation and propagation and a powerful genetic toolkit. Despite their relative simplicity, nematodes present a wide range of behaviors and possess well-defined tissues. C. elegans offers an excellent ethical alternative to vertebrate animal testing, providing fast and high-throughput results through a whole-organism, validated by 60+ years of scientific research. Toxicity data obtained in worms proved them- selves to be predictive of outcomes in mammals and the LC50 ranking in C. elegans matches the LD50 ranking in mouse and rat.
Nagi Bioscience introduces the first Organism-on-Chip technology
Nagi Bioscience’s Organism-on-Chip technology introduces a paradigm-shift in C. elegans-based drug/chemical testing. We completely replaced the traditional manual protocols of C. elegans research by standardized operations within the Nagi™ Chips – disposable microfluidic cartridges – integrated in our fully automated laboratory equipment, the SydLab™ One.