European Animal Research Association (EARA)

Biotechnology companies are increasingly looking to large-scale animal studies, that can test multiple potential treatments at once, to develop new drugs. An article in Nature Biotechnology describes how, thanks to new affordable cell techniques, the screening of compounds for drug discovery is now also being done in living animals. Companies are able to scale up this drug screening so that in a single animal, potentially thousands of administered therapies can be tracked for their effects on individual cells – so-called ‘multiplexed in vivo screening.’ Computation and AI make it possible to automate the process and rapidly analyse complex data. The idea is to bring animal testing to an earlier stage of drug development to reduce costs and time, and the number of animals that may be needed to get preclinical results, as well as improve efficiency. Read more: https://lnkd.in/eErZi4B6 #AnimalResearch #AnimalTesting #DrugDiscovery #DrugScreening #DrugDevelopment #PreclinicalTesting #AI

Research at EARA member The Jackson Laboratory has developed a new non-invasive method to effectively weigh mice using computer vision, enhancing animal welfare in research settings. Weighing mice is essential in many studies, but traditional methods with scales can cause handling stress to the animals, leading to inaccurate measurements. This new technology, using computer vision (a field of AI), captures images of individual mice in their cages, with continuous monitoring, and automatically calculates their weight based on the images. Read more: https://lnkd.in/eMYW6SeG #AI #3Rs #Refinement #Mice #AnimalWelfare

By modifying different parasites, researchers have found separate ways to deliver drugs to the brain and develop a more effective vaccine against malaria. A study led by the University of Glasgow and Tel Aviv University looked to the common parasite Toxoplasma gondii to to deliver therapeutic proteins to the brain to help treat neurological diseases, while a study led by Heidelberg University and University Hospital Heidelberg genetically modified the parasite that causes malaria to develop more slowly in mice, to help improve current vaccines. Read more: https://lnkd.in/e-wpnqnM #AnimalResearch #Mice #Parasites #BrainDisease #Toxoplasma #Malaria #MalariaVaccine

The value of using chicken eggs to study cancer has been highlighted in a recent video, which holds the potential to reduce how many mice are used in this field. The documentary, by EARA member Understanding Animal Research, in collaboration with King's College London, both UK, focuses on research at King’s that investigates how tumours can develop resistance to therapy – the understanding of which could help to provide alternative treatments for patients to improve their survival. Read more: https://lnkd.in/e9C5-_6Y #AnimalResearch #CancerResearch #Cancer #Mice #Chickens #3Rs

Animal tests show how a drug will react in the living body and detect toxic effects, on average 86% of the time, so that we can be confident drugs are safe and effective by the time they reach people. #AnimalResearch

We are excited to announce the first EU-Simia meeting, set to take place on 21-22 November 2024 at the Institut Sciences Cognitives Marc Jeannerod (ISCMJ) in Lyon, France. This milestone event is a must attend for any NHP researchers in Europe. It will bring together leading researchers, experts, and stakeholders from across Europe and beyond to discuss and advance non-human primate (NHP) research. Why Attend? Engage with Experts: Connect with leading figures in NHP research and gain valuable insights into the latest advancements and future directions. Network and Collaborate: Build relationships with peers, foster new collaborations, and strengthen existing ones. Address Challenges: Participate in discussions on the ethical, regulatory, and practical challenges facing NHP research today. Support and Advocacy: Learn about ongoing advocacy efforts by EARA and EU-Simia to support NHP research amidst regulatory changes and activist pressures. Please find registration details below.

Using sheep, separate studies from France and the US have uncovered potential biomaterial treatments for heart disease and cartilage damage. A study from the French National Institute for Health and Medical Research (INSERM) and the Université de Bordeaux explored the creation of heart valves made of biomaterials, as a new way to treat congenital heart disease, which affects 1 in every 4000 births. Meanwhile, researchers at Northwestern University developed a scaffold made of biomaterials that promoted cartilage regrowth, improving joint function. Read more: https://lnkd.in/eNJ8D9Tk #AnimalResearch #Sheep #Biomaterials #HeartDisease #CongenitalHeartDisease #CartilageDamage #Arthritis

Organoids derived from people with diabetes have shed light on how the condition damages blood vessels, in a study using stem cells. Research at Queen's University Belfast and King's College London, both UK, grew blood vessel (vascular) cells from stem cells taken from people with diabetes to create organoids that showed some of the impaired vascular function linked to the condition – this included higher levels of oxygen-containing chemicals, which is also seen in diabetes due to high blood sugar. Read more: https://lnkd.in/esBaUbqv #Organoids #Diabetes #BloodVessels #StemCells

Researchers in the US have delivered human neurons, that are damaged in Parkinson’s, into monkeys as a new approach for treating the condition, with the first trials set to start in patients. A team led by the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Aspen Neuroscience, Inc. developed an approach to replace lost dopaminergic neurons by first growing them from human stem cells, before transplanting them into the brains of monkeys. Five of the six monkeys in the study retained the human neurons after a week, and a higher number of the neurons were observed after 30 days, indicating that the transplants were successful in helping to replace dopaminergic neurons. Read more: https://lnkd.in/gmayHJjX #AnimalResearch #ParkinsonsDisease #ParkinsonsResearch #BrainResearch #MonkeyReseach #NHP

Certain clinical trials can be unreliable, with studies being poorly designed, incorrectly calculated or even faked, reports a 2023 Nature feature. This 'frighteningly widespread' trend of flawed and untrustworthy randomised controlled trials (RCTs) – which are a key stage in the drug development and approval process, informed by prior animal studies – poses a clear barrier to how animal research is translated into the clinic. It also helps to explain the statistic that 5% of animal studies lead to regulatory drug approval, from a recent review by the Center for Reproducible Science at EARA member University of Zurich. Such flawed clinical trials feed into the fact that this 'low' success rate cannot be attributed to animal research alone (in fact, the Zurich authors said that given the challenge to develop new therapies as a whole, 5% is not actually as low a figure as it may seem, while also finding that 86% of animal studies that were most frequently reproduced led to similar results in humans). Addressing how to improve translatability from animal studies lies in improving the design of both human and animal trials – various researchers have noted this as a key hurdle, and not necessarily deficiencies in the animal models themselves. Nature feature: https://lnkd.in/gp_Mdcxs EARA article on 5% study: https://lnkd.in/g2zNvD9R #AnimalResearch #AnimalTesting #Reproducibility #ClinicalTrials #RCT #DrugDevelopment #DrugApproval