Functional human tissue assays

Functional human tissue assays can be used to measure a vast range of physiological effects at the level of the organ, cell or even gene. In relation to drug discovery, such assays have been used in three main areas: discovery biology, in vitro efficacy pharmacology, and safety pharmacology. The most common area to which assays have been applied has been discovery biology, to investigate the mechanisms underlying a novel drug target or to validate that a target identified in a particular tissue is capable of eliciting a physiological response. Furthermore, as the available assays develop, they are considered an important adjunct to routine safety and efficacy pharmacology tests. Such approaches are often superior to extrapolation from animal data.