A primitive roundworm called Caenorhabditis elegans (C. elegans) is being evaluated in a Duke University laboratory as a cheaper and quicker alternative to rats and mice in testing chemicals for several kinds of toxicity. In its natural environment, C. elegans spends its brief life dining on microbes in the soil. But Jonathan Freedman of Duke’s Nicholas School of the Environment and Earth Sciences envisions that, in a laboratory setting, these simple animals could substantially reduce, and in some cases perhaps eventually replace, the need for expensive, large-scale rodent studies.
