Ethical Issues in the Use of Animal Models for Tissue Engineering: Reflections on Legal Aspects, Moral Theory, Three Rs Strategies, and Harm-Benefit Analysis.

Animal experimentation requires a solid and rational moral foundation. Objective and emphatic decision-making and protocol evaluation by researchers and ethics committees remain a difficult and sensitive matter. This article presents three perspectives that facilitate a consideration of the minimally acceptable standard for animal experiments, in particular, in tissue engineering (TE) and regenerative medicine.