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Organ chips, better for humans and animals
November 3, 2022 In 2021, the number of animals used for research testing in South Korea reached a record high of 4.8 million. This trend of increased in South Korea cuts against the global trend of development and adoption of innovative, non-animal approaches—the New Approach Methodologies (NAMs). Despite its current reliance on animals, South Korea […]
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Multistakeholder workshop held to address Animal Reliance Bias in Publishing
4 July 2022 Transparency in scientific publishing, to facilitate fair access to scientific journals for scientists using innovative non-animal methodologies for studying human biology, was the subject of an April 20-21 workshop co-organized by the Physician’s Committee for Responsible Medicine in collaboration with Humane Society International and other groups. This workshop focused on a subject […]
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Research round-up: Organ-on-a-chip models for predicting drug-induced liver and cardiotoxicity and for studying the colon mucus layer
28 December 2019 ‘Reproducing human and cross-species drug toxicities using a Liver-Chip’, delves into the research by Emulate Inc. with Janssen Pharmaceuticals, Astra Zeneca and the Wyss Institute at Harvard on the development of liver chips using species-specific cells to predict drug induced liver toxicity and reduce drug attrition rates. On the same lines of drug induced […]
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IABS Conference on Animal Testing for Vaccines – Implementing Replacement, Reduction and Refinement: Challenges and Priorities
5 December 2019 The 2019 IABS Conference, dedicated to the challenges and priorities in implementing alternative methods to animal testing for vaccines, gathered together key experts from companies, regulators and international organizations, with a meaningful participation of local representatives. The objective of the conference was the presentation of the advancements of the last 5 years […]
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During COPD awareness month; time to stop smoking cigarettes, whether you’re a mouse, a dog or a human!
5 November 2019 Rats jammed face first into what look like small milk bottles, no room to move, no option to even turn their heads. The rats in glass cylinders are arranged rows deep, screwed into a huge central metal cylinder that will provide a constant stream of cigarette smoke, directed into their faces in […]
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Stem cells cultured from human skin used to study fatty liver disease
1 October 2019 Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease comprises a range of conditions, ranging from the uncomplicated – hepatic steatosis – to the more severe hepatocellular carcinoma. Non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) is a form of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease in which there is hepatitis and liver cell damage, in addition to fat build-up. NASH may lead to […]
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Research round-up: Species-specific differences in the cerebral cortex revealed, a new retina-on-a-chip model and a functional microphysiological pancreas.
25 September 2019 Our October edition of Research Round-up has collected three very different advances in our understanding of human organ systems. In the Nature article “Conserved cell types with divergent features in human versus mouse cortex,” Hodge et al. analyzed the cellular composition of the human cortex at the single nucleus RNA level. In […]
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Standing with Vanda- supporting the stance against unnecessary animal testing
8 August 2019 Intermittent or chronic nausea. Bloating. Burning, shearing or gnawing abdominal pain. A feeling of fullness after eating just a few bites. Poor appetite and weight loss. These symptoms add up to the distressing condition known as gastroparesis – a chronic, life-limiting disorder that leads to weight loss and potentially life-threatening complications. Gastroparesis […]
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Research round-up: Reliable 3D brain organoids, promising new FDA-approved drugs for treating lymphoma and an efficient cartilage-on-a-chip for screening disease-modifying osteoarthritic drugs.
19 July 2019 This edition of research round-up reports on very different aspects of applying human-focused technologies and strategies. The paper by Velasco et al. entitled ”Individual brain organoids reproducibly form cell diversity of the human cerebral cortex” and published in Nature shows that results obtained from brain organoids are reliable and can be replicated. […]
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Move over monkeys: combatting the world’s deadliest infections using groundbreaking human-mimetic tools
7 July 2019 A new article published in the journal Frontiers in Cellular and Infection Microbiology shows that research built around human-mimetic tools are more likely to succeed in the search for effective treatments for and prevention of flavivirus infection as compared to research using monkeys or other animals as laboratory models. The study, led […]
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Korea’s first cross-ministerial forum to discuss new legislation supporting non-animal approaches
30 May 2019 Korea’s first-ever public forum to discuss replacing animal use in science will be hosted in Seoul at the National Assembly on May 30. Organized by Humane Society International (HSI) and Korean lawyers’ group People for Non-Human Rights (PNR), the forum is co-hosted by members of National Assembly – In-soon Nam, Kyungmi Park, […]
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New report sheds light on the UK’s growing medicines discovery industry
21 May 2019 The 2019 State of the Discovery Nation report offers a revealing insight into the current status of the drug discovery community in the UK, clearly indicating that companies are beginning to leverage technological advances to improve the drug discovery pipeline. The report is compiled from responses to survey questionnaires sent out to […]
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Centre for Promoting Alternatives to Animal Experiments launched by Atal Incubation Centre at Centre for Cellular & Molecular Biology in Hyderabad, India
25 April 2019 Atal Incubation Centre (AIC) at the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB), in collaboration with Humane Society International/ India (HSI/India), has launched the Centre for Predictive Human Model Systems, a centre dedicated to enable a paradigm shift in science by focusing on 21st century new approach methodologies instead of animal models. […]
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Research round-up: 3D oral mucosa models, diabetes in a dish, and tubuloids from human kidney
12 April 2019 Every day we come across innovative, intelligent studies that do not rely on animals to investigate human diseases and that instead find efficient and cost-effective solutions in biomedical research that are human-focused. In this edition of Research Round-up we highlight three papers from scientists who have developed novel human-focused models to mimic […]
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Putting people first – human-relevant research for Parkinson’s disease
3 April 2019 World Parkinson’s Day (April 11th) aims to raise awareness of Parkinson’s disease (PD) and the desperate need for effective new treatments. A recent review authored by members of the BioMed21 Collaboration identifies advances that could be implemented to better understand pathological processes, improve disease outcome, and reduce dependence on animal models. Many […]
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For finding better treatments for TB, the computer is mightier than the mouse
13 March 2019 In March of 1882, Robert Koch used tissue from infected guinea pigs to show that the lung disease tuberculosis (TB) is caused by the organism Mycobacterium tuberculosis. At that time, TB was a constant presence in the population, infecting between 70 to 90 percent of people in urban areas of Europe and […]
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Modelling the human heart: Predictive models for cardiotoxicity testing
22 February 2019 What do self-driving cars, solar airplanes and renewable energy have in common with the human heart? At first thought, not a great deal, yet a recent scientific endeavour called the Living Heart Project has brought together experts in engineering, aeronautics and energy to produce a sophisticated new model of the human heart […]
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EU ORCHID project interim roadmap lays out the route for organs-on-chips
18 January 2019 Organ-on-Chip in Development (ORCHID) is a European Horizon 2020 project that aims to capitalise on the innovative technology that is organ-on-chip, or OoC. The ORCHID consortium is made up of seven partners from six European countries and was launched in 2017 with the overall aim of building a network of OoC stakeholders, including […]
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Launch of Indian Society for Alternatives to Animal Experiments
14 January 2019 In November 2018, India joined other innovative economies working to replace the use of animals in laboratory experiments with the launch of the Indian Society for Alternatives to Animal Experiments (ISAAE) during the country’s second national conference on alternatives in New Delhi. Humane Society International, founder of the BioMed21 Collaboration, was a […]
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Improving diabetes outcomes through personalised medicine
13 December 2018 Diabetes treatment is often touted as the poster-child success of animal research; after all, insulin was first discovered in dog pancreas almost 100 years ago. A lot has changed since then. Or at least it should have. The reality is that billions of research dollars are still wasted on ineffective animal models […]
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Bioengineered human cardiac models spur disruptive innovation in disease research and drug discovery
23 October 2018 Thrombosis-on-a-chip, vasculature-on-a-chip and engineered models of human cardiac fibrosis are just a few of the new technologies revolutionizing research into human cardiovascular disease—a condition responsible for 17 million deaths per annum globally. A new study entitled Cardiovascular Disease Models: A Game Changing Paradigm in Drug Discovery and Screening, published this week in […]
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Call for new approaches to fill significant gaps in understanding Parkinson’s disease
3 October 2018 Analysis published in Drug Discovery Today reveals the gap between animal models of Parkinson’s disease (PD) and our understanding of the neurodegenerative processes underlying the disease, and calls for the implementation of modern, human biology-based technologies to better understand pathological processes and improve treatment outcome. While current approaches to drug discovery for […]
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In silico mapping provides new insights on patient outcome in sepsis
21 September 2018 Sepsis is a life-threatening organ dysfunction caused by a dysregulated host response to infection and a major public health concern, particularly for the very young and very old. Around the world, sepsis kills more people than AIDS, breast cancer and prostate cancer combined. The mortality rate can be as high as 50%, […]
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Fatty liver disease pandemic needs ‘gold standard’ human- relevant research, say Belgian scientists
9 August 2018 A new study by scientists from the Vrije Universiteit Brussel calls for a new gold standard in research to treat non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH), an obesity-linked chronic liver disease impacting millions of people of all ages worldwide. The disease can progress to liver cancer if untreated, creating a massive strain on an already […]
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BioMed21 Workshop Report: Avoiding a ‘drugs drought’ means shifting away from animal testing, experts say
31 July 2018 Recommendations to come out of a workshop attended by representatives of the U.S. National Institutes of Health, the Federal Drug Administration, big pharma, and academia hold a dire warning: unless we invest more funding in human- rather than animal-based medical research to better predict which new drugs will treat human disease, the […]
Toward a human-focus paradigm in health research
