Alternative methods to animal studies

Organ-on-a-chip technologies can serve as models of human biology. But they have been limited by the inability to grow them with a vascular system. Bioengineer Professor Milica Radisic will begin a three-year fellowship at the Max Delbrück Center in Berlin-Buch to take on the challenge.

Research teams at the Max Delbrück Center and its partner institutions used almost 17,000 fewer research animals in 2023 than in the previous year. The Center has now submitted these figures to the Berlin State Office for Health and Social Affairs (LaGeSo).

The Einstein Center 3R will continue for a second funding period. Following a successful interim evaluation, the board of the Einstein Foundation Berlin has approved funding for a further two and a half years for research into alternatives to animal testing. Partners include the Max Delbrück Center.

In neuromuscular diseases, neurons and muscle cells stop communicating properly. Researchers led by Mina Gouti can now model this in 2D in a culture dish. Writing about their findings in “Nature Communications”, they say the new model promises to revolutionize high-throughput drug screening studies.

No science-remote phase-out plan for animal research in Europe – the EU-LIFE research alliance, which includes the Max Delbrück Center, welcomes the EU Commission's response to the European citizens' initiative "Save Cruelty Free Cosmetics".

Ahead of the European Parliament’s hearing on the European Citizens’ Initiative “Save cruelty-free cosmetics – Commit to a Europe without animal testing” on May 25th, 2023, EU-LIFE and LERU express their concern about the call to phase out all animal testing in Europe.

Studies conducted by research teams at the Max Delbrück Center and its partner institutions used a total of 54,402 animals in 2022. The Center has now submitted these figures to the Berlin State Office for Health and Social Affairs (LaGeSo).

Organoids have to be fed and cared for continuously so that they can mature. So far, it is mostly a manual process – not suitable for industrial drug screening. Now, the European Research Council (ERC) has awarded Mina Gouti a Proof of Concept Grant to tackle scalability and reproducibility.

Jana Wolf draws on experimental data and the growing knowledge of cellular mechanisms to translate disease processes into mathematical models. Her models aim to represent the complexity of life as realistically as possible and to help develop therapies that are precisely tailored to the patient.

Research to improve human health is currently not possible without animal testing. At the same time, scientists are searching for alternatives. In the current episode of the Berlin Research 50 (BR50) podcast, Thomas Prinzler discusses progress and limitations with Berlin experts.