The American government is trying to develop a system through which animal and human cells will replace animals used for testing. Robots will be used to predict the degree of toxicity of various products.

Three U.S. agencies have united, in order to accomplish a very noble and ambitious goal: the end of animal testing. The Environmental Protection Agency, the National Toxicology Program and the National Institutes of Health have signed a "Memorandum of Understanding" to develop and implement together the new methods, the journal Science informs.

The agreement is a "milestone" says Martin Stephens of the Humane Society of the United States. "We believe this is the beginning of the end for animal testing. We think the process will take about 10 years."

The agencies realize this will be a difficult task for them and that it will take them several years to complete the new approaches. But, as many activist groups such as The Humane Society have fought for years against animal testing as an immoral practice, and also the costs of product testing has been growing in the last years, it seems the agencies’ work is worth the effort.

There are no actual figures to prove it, but Sthephen guesses there are about 10 million animals tested in the world each year, including rabbits, dogs and monkeys. This procedure is time-consuming, very expensive and harms a lot of animals.

The new method that the three agencies are developing involves human or animal cells and molecules, that will be analyzed using high-speed screening technology. However, it will be many years before the new non-animal based tests become routine.