ALTEX Proceedings 2, 1/13, Proceedings of Animal Alternatives in Teaching, Toxicity Testing and Medicine 5 1 Introduction The use of animals in science is a contentious issue, with opinions from scientists, teachers, animal protectionists, and the public either to support animal experimentation or to reject/minimize it (Pawlik, 1998; Giridharan, 2000; Greek and Greek, 2010; Greek, 2012). The main purposes of animal experiments are for: basic biological knowledge; fundamental medical research; the discovery and development of drugs, vaccines, and medical devices; toxicity testing of drugs, other chemical entities, and consumer products; and education and training (Taylor et al., 2008). These contexts of animal use can be broadly classiied into (i) education and training, and (ii) research and testing. It is roughly estimated that among the several million animals sacriiced for the cause of science, in any country, 1-10% are used in education and the rest in research and testing. There has been a movement against the use of animals in endeavors in science on several grounds and, as a result, greater awareness has been generated. A concerted effort across the globe has resulted in a considerable reduction in the number of animals used and increased recognition that animals are sentient beings. It is cause to rejoice that India has made rapid strides in phasing out animal use in education and training, but the scenario with respect to research and testing has changed very little. This article is an attempt to sensitize the stakeholders to the need to promote the most humane science. 2 On the use of animals in education and training in basic sciences and the potential alternatives In education and training, wild-collected as well as laboratory- bred animals in millions are used in the name of knowledge acquisition and/or skill development in basic life sciences, as well as in professional education for medical, veterinary, pharmacology, etc., purposes. Dissections of and experiments using animals have been practiced as laboratory exercises in zoology and allied life sciences since the 1920s, at a time when the subjects of animal anatomy, taxonomy, and evolution were emphasized in theory courses. These classical subjects have now been relegated to the background in the light of emerging subjects such as biochemistry, molecular biology, and biotechnology, warranting lectures and laboratory exercises in these subjects. Further, the demand for animals for purpose of dissections has increased to such an extent that animals are no longer available in large enough numbers to meet the demand. The large-scale removal of animals from their natural habitats for an unnatural purpose can potentially lead to biodiversity loss and an ecological crisis. Laws have been enacted protecting selected animal species, but these laws are often not heeded, and animals have been continued to be used in education. Social groups and scientists also have questioned both the logic and the relevance of animal dissections in education in the contemporary Alternatives to Animals in Education, Research, and Risk Assessment: An Overview with Special Reference to Indian Context Mohammad A. Akbarsha 1,2 , Mohammed Zeeshan 1,3 , and Karukayil J. Meenakumari 1 1 Mahatma Gandhi-Doerenkamp Center (MGDC) for Alternatives to Use of Animals in Life Science Education; Bharathidasan University, Tiruchirappalli, India; 2 Visiting Professor, King Saud University, Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia; 3 Department of Environmental Biotechnology. Bharathidasan University, Tiruchirappalli, India Summary Animal experimentation remains a matter of debate and controversy. On one side is the opinion that animal use in education, research, and testing raises concerns relating to ethical treatment of animals, the source from which animals are obtained, ill-designed experiments, relevance of inferences from the testing outcomes, safety issues, biodiversity issues, environmental concerns, etc. On the other side is the opinion that the beneits that have come from animal research would not have been realized if not for animal experiments. These concerns led to the 3Rs principles of Replacement, Reduction, and Reinement in the use of animals in experimentation, otherwise known as the concept of alternatives. Once a matter of imagination, today science has evolved such that drugs, cosmetics, and agrochemicals can be tested adopting scientiically validated non-animal methods. Today, the science of alternatives has gained recognition from both an ethical and a scientiic point of view. The breakthroughs in ICT, cell culture techniques, in vitro toxicology, molecular tools, functional genomics, tissue engineering, systems biology, etc., have made it possible to take the concept of alternatives from a myth to reality. There is still a long way to go, however: just as science has no end, the search for alternatives has no end. Keywords: alternatives, in vitro systems, in silico approaches, validation of alternatives