18 May 2020

by Lindsay Marshall

The European Union is on a mission to defeat cancer. This devastating disease disproportionately impacts Europeans, who represent one tenth of the global population, yet comprise one quarter of all cancer diagnoses worldwide. It is no surprise then, that cancer is one of the five mission areas of the EU’s most recent research and innovation framework programme, Horizon Europe. The goal of the mission area focused on cancer is to forestall the staggering number of cancer diagnoses, projected to increase to more than 4.3 million newly diagnosed cases by 2035.

The BioMed21 Collaboration’s team of experienced toxicologists and biomedical scientists, with varied backgrounds in computer modelling, read-across analysis, molecular biology and cellular physiology, has called on the Cancer Mission board to prioritise funding and build capacity for innovative, human-focused, animal-free research and testing strategies that enable the development of precise and reliable models for understanding cancer. We are keen to ensure that the mission adopts a modern research paradigm to enable effective research and development that advances public health through more judicious use of resources. [Read more…]

30 March 2020

Cancer researchers based in India are invited to submit proposals for funding to support the integration of biological pathways related to cancer, building on the concept from the field of toxicology of Adverse Outcome Pathways (AOPs). More information on how to apply »

The need for this type of human-relevant research is evident. Cancer claims millions of lives worldwide each year. Yet, despite relentless efforts to find a cure, 97 percent of cancer drugs that reach clinical trials never make it to market. This points to a failure of our drug discovery pipeline, which relies heavily on animal testing. Back in 1997, Dr Richard Klausner, director of the U.S. National Cancer Institute, famously said, “The history of cancer research has been a history of curing cancer in the mouse. We have cured mice of cancer for decades – and it simply didn’t work in humans.” Sadly, little has changed since then. Further pursuit of cancer research in rodents — even ‘humanized’ rodents containing one or two human genes — will not get us where we need to go in our quest for a cure. [Read more…]

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 toxicity, Matsui et al. worked on developing 2D model systems with human iPSCs to predict cancer drug-induced cardiotoxicity, described in their paper ‘Cell-based two-dimensional morphological assessment system to predict cancer drug-induced cardiotoxicity using human induced pluripotent stem cell-derived cardiomyocytes’. Finally for this edition, ‘Human colon-on-a-chip enables continuous in vitro analysis of colon mucus layer accumulation and physiology’ by Sontheimer-Phelps et al. from the Wyss Institute, reports on their model which recapitulates the structure and composition of the native mucus layer of the human intestine – enabling in-depth study of this important defensive barrier. [Read more…]

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 in the development and regulatory acceptance of alternative methods to animal testing for batch release testing, plus a discussion on what still needs to be accomplished by manufacturers and regulators to transition to non animal-based testing strategies, particularly in developing countries.

A full day has been devoted to dedicated workshops, one focused on the specific needs of developing countries with regards to the implementation of alternative methods, and another on the concepts of validation, implementation, acceptance and harmonization. The discussion prompted a general acknowledgement that in order to improve the chances of investment in, and acceptance of alternative methods, both regulators and manufacturers ought to raise the level of mutual trust and exchange, a result which could be achieved by increased sharing of data, and clearer communication of needs and expectations, already from the early stages of product development or product/testing strategy variation. [Read more…]