Biologists have a similar process. They test things that might affect DNA on fruit flies instead of other organisms with long life cycles. Fruit flies have life cycles on the scale of hours, so you can cram a LOT of generations in a few weeks/months. That lets you test something that might take decades or even centuries with other, longer-lived organisms, or millennia/eons with humans. The application might be different, but the concept still gets effectively and scientifically tested.