Latest news from the NC3Rs: June 2025

A big thank you to the BBSRC- and NC3Rs-funded PhD students who joined us at our annual summer school this month! We were really impressed with how well the students developed their ability to articulate the 3Rs impacts of their work over three days of skills development and networking, alongside sessions on experimental design and reproducibility. In this month’s WORC Community podcast, Dr Cathy Vickers (Head of Innovation) discussed how our CRACK IT Challenges establish collaborations to develop novel 3Rs tools that solve R&D issues faced by industry. Tune in at minute 28 to hear about the ‘virtual dog’ we are developing for use in chronic toxicity testing and a project to improve the capabilities and confidence in organ-on-chip devices.

3Rs Prize winner: Replacing animal-derived antibodies

A scalable system to assess antibody performance and build confidence in recombinant reagents to replace animal-derived antibodies has won the International 3Rs Prize, sponsored by GSK.

3Rs Prize ceremony (online)
Wednesday 23 July, 14.00 – 15.30 (BST)

Join us at our online ceremony next month to learn more about the outstanding 3Rs advances recognised by this years’ Prize. Hear from the Prize winners about how they tested the performance of over 600 antibodies and learn more about the highly commended in vitro method to replace mice in antivenom potency testing.

Find out more and register for the 3Rs Prize ceremony.

Public engagement with the 3Rs

Last year we awarded almost £21k to 13 public engagement projects, reaching over 3,000 people at 17 events across the UK. Dr Genevieve Barr (Science manager – Communications) explores some of the projects that we funded in 2024, from inspiring the next generation of scientists to creating reusable resources for the scientific community to use in their own 3Rs communication activities.

Find out more about our public engagement awards and how to apply.

Webinar recording: Improving the lives of laboratory zebrafish

Zebrafish are commonly used in biological and biomedical research and interest in how to maintain and promote higher standards of welfare for this species continues to grow. In this webinar, Professor Robert Gerlai from the University of Toronto Mississauga explores how optimising housing and his award-winning work on handling methods can improve both zebrafish welfare and research data quality.

Watch the recording: Improving the lives of laboratory zebrafish.

Virtual workshop: Using the Experimental Design Assistant

Thursday 24 July, 16.00 – 18.00 (BST)
Our Experimental Design Assistant (EDA) tool helps researchers at any level design robust in vivo experiments. During this interactive session Dr Esther Pearl (Programme Manager – Experimental Design) will give a live demonstration of the EDA before answering your questions and providing personalised feedback as you design your own experiment.

Galleria mellonella workshop

Monday 15 September
Edge Hill University, Ormskirk
The fourth annual Galleria mellonella workshop, this year organised by NC3Rs-funded Dr Rachel Clare, will include networking and discussion of methods, models and husbandry techniques. Attendees are invited to present their research and related techniques and there will be a poster session to broaden the knowledge sharing in the field.

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