Very often substance testing on animals is not or just quite limited able to predict the human situation. This becomes very apparent in the development of new drugs, which often in so-called clinical studies (research on the human) turn out as effectless and/or show side effects, though they were tested on animals before. This podcast episode deals with the possibilities of using animal-free methods for drug development. Some diseases and so-called disease models are also presented and their benefits and the challenges of their development are explained.