The scope and scale of the coronavirus crisis has brought misery to millions of people and changed the way we live and work. Ending this pandemic will also require a paradigm shift within the scientific community.

Even though much remains uncertain, one thing is clear: experimenting on animals squanders precious time and resources when both are in short supply.

Globally, researchers are working around the clock to develop much-needed treatments and vaccines for COVID-19. Innovative methods that accurately reflect human biology highlight how archaic and useless the old animal-based models really are.

Three-dimensional reconstructed human respiratory tissue models, such as those from Epithelix and MatTek Life Sciences, are being used to study COVID-19 infection and screen for potential treatments. A long-time supporter of the two companies, the PETA International Science Consortium Ltd. helped fund the development of a first-of-its-kind model of the lower respiratory tract, available from MatTek, which can be used to study the health effects of chemicals, nanomaterials, pathogens, and other respirable materials.

Samantha Saunders is currently volunteering at the University of Bristol coronavirus research laboratory, where she completed her PhD, to develop new COVID-19 testing methods using the virus grown in cells. Other scientists in her laboratory are growing it in the same way to investigate the way it spreads and causes sickness. Using this technique, they can find out whether it mutates under certain conditions. Unlike pointlessly infecting mice, this work provides crucial information.