Introduction: 

Using animal products is nothing new to the field of biomanufacturing. Over the years, animal-derived serums and blood have regularly been used in the drug development process. Their boundless applications and accessibility play a role in their widespread use. However, in recent years, animal-derived ingredients are facing significant criticism. Concerns pertaining to the ethics of using these products continue to grow. Additionally, the risk of depending on ingredients with unpredictable supply has caused scientists to rethink the use of such products. This paper will discuss the current use of animal products, specifically Fetal Bovine Serum (FBS), criticism these materials face, and recommendations to resolve this issue. 
 
Summary of Evidence:
For the past sixty years, Fetal Bovine Serum (FBS) has played a key role in the culture of mammalian cells. FBS is a growth supplement added to culture media that helps stimulate cell growth in culture. The serum is popular due to its rich composition of nutrients and growth factors that are essential for cell growth. It is important to note that FBS supports most types of human, animal, and insect cells, and thus has a wide range of applications (Gstraunthaler, 2013). We must also recognize how FBS is produced. Blood is drawn from the fetuses of pregnant cows before slaughter. The blood is then processed and allowed to clot to produce the material used in cell cultures. Due to this, it is not surprising that controversies and concerns about the ethics of this practice have emerged in recent years as some may view the process as gruesome.
 
The ethics of using animal products, specifically FBS, are the root cause of most of the criticism these products face. The means of harvest and collection of animal products raise great concerns among the public. Some view these practices as amoral and cruel to animals.
Others are skeptical as “several of the world’s most prominent religions have objected to the use of certain animal-derived products, including Muslim, Hindu, Christian, Jewish, and Buddhist faiths,” (State of Queensland, 2020). However, aside from public perception, there are various other drawbacks to using an animal product in the production of biopharmaceuticals. One specific disadvantage being the batch-to-batch variations. In a field where all factors are strictly controlled and monitored, variations in animal products are unacceptable and “can affect the reproducibility of experiments,” (Parimi, 2020). Differences due to seasonal changes and other related factors affect quality of animal products. Additionally, animal materials used in biomanufacturing originate from animals in the slaughterhouse that will be used for meat. Hence, the supply of animal products depends on the demand of meat for human consumption. Factors like “beef consumption, dairy product consumption, feed prices, and environmental factors such as drought and outbreak of diseases” (Gstraunthaler, 2013) all affect the availability of animal materials. Thus, the supply of animal products must be taken into account when using them to produce biopharmaceuticals.
 
Recently, the biomanufacturing industry has been moving towards developing new methods in order to minimize the use of animal products (Murry, 2019). Fetalgro has been developed as a substitute to FBS and works very similarly to the animal-derived serum itself. (Rocky Mountains Biologicals Inc., n.d.). Growth curves from tests portray Fetalgro to be just as effective as FBS. Additionally, an external biotechnology company named Labscoop claimed that Fetalgro even outperformed FBS in numerous cancer cell lines (Das, 2019). This product created by Rocky Mountain Biologicals has great potential to completely replace FBS in the future. Products like Fetalgro are evidence that it is possible to find alternatives to animal products. Until then, FBS and other animal products continue to be used in biomanufacturing.
 
Recommendations:
Although the use of fetal bovine serum and other animal products have decreased in recent years, more must be done to minimize its usage. The first clear step would be to invest more resources into creating functional alternatives to the animal-derived products already used in the industry. More research must be done to find alternatives to these materials. Several substitutes to FBS have already been discovered and are currently being used in the manufacturing stream. However, they are not as common as the mainstream FBS due to gaps in marketing and product popularity. To resolve this issue, marketing of newly manufactured products should be emphasized in order for it to reach biomanufacturing companies at a large scale. These recommendations will help reduce the use of animal-derived products in the biomanufacturing field and soon completely replace them.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
References
Das, K. (2019, November 16). Use of Lipogro or Fetalgro for cell culture. ResearchGate. Retrieved June 6, 2021, from researchgate.net/post/Did-anyone-used-Lipogro-or-Fetalgro-for-cell-culture
Gstraunthaler. (2003). Alternatives to the use of fetal bovine serum: serum-free cell culture. National Library of Medicine. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/14671707/
Gstraunthaler, G. (2013, August 22). A plea to reduce or replace fetal bovine serum in cell culture media. U.S. National Library of Medicine. Retrieved May 24, 2021, from ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3967615/
Johnson, M. (2012, March). Fetal Bovine Serum. Labome. Retrieved May 24, 2021, from labome.com/method/Fetal-Bovine-Serum.html
Medicines/pharmaceuticals of animal origin. (2020, November). Queensland Health. Retrieved June 6, 2021, from health.qld.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0024/147507/qh-gdl-954.pdf
Murray, J. (2019, September 21). A challenging future for fetal bovine serum. BioProcess International. Retrieved May 24, 2021, from bioprocessintl.com/upstream-processing/biochemicals-raw-materials/challenging-future-for-fetal-bovine-serum/
Parimi, R. (2020, July 21). How to reduce your use of animal products in the lab. BiteSize Bio. Retrieved June 6, 2021, from bitesizebio.com/48035/reduce-animal-products/