New NC3Rs Research Review showcases 3Rs-focused science

The Review showcases how implementing the 3Rs leads not only to improved animal welfare and reduced animal use, but also to wider impacts beyond the lab.

Funding is a key focus of our strategy for supporting 3Rs science. Since our launch in 2004, we have committed £62.3M across a total of 332 grants and early career awards. We continue to evolve our funding schemes to address areas of specific 3Rs concern as well as feedback from the scientific community. This includes extending our reach by collaborating with other research funders and organisations, including Cancer Research UK and Unilever; supporting the dissemination of new 3Rs tools, models or techniques through our Skills and Knowledge Transfer grant scheme; and establishing our open-access F1000Research gateway, where NC3Rs-funded researchers can share the full methodological details of their work.

Through our work, we have shown that the benefits of 3Rs-focused science reach beyond the 3Rs themselves. The Research Review explores how our grant holders’ research has led to improvements for human and animal health and the environment, as well as generating commercial opportunities. It also demonstrates the breadth of science we fund, in areas as varied as parasitology and cardiotoxicity. Some of the featured grant holders have received multiple NC3Rs awards and we describe the value this has added in terms of widening impact and driving further advances.

The 12 researchers featured in the Review are:

• Professor Wendy Barclay (Imperial College London): Ferrets and flu transmission studies
• Dr Raymond Bujdoso (University of Cambridge): Fly infectivity assay for prion disease
• Professor Joanne Cable (Cardiff University): Bioreactor for Cryptosporidium oocysts
• Professor Claire Gibson (University of Nottingham): Blood flow in mouse stroke models
• Professor Liam Grover (University of Birmingham): Self-structuring bone in vitro
• Dr David Hill (Newcastle University): Zebrafish and skin cancer research
• Dr Luigi Margiotta-Casaluci (Brunel University London): Pathways for cardiotoxicity
• Professor Blanca Rodriguez (University of Oxford): Virtual heart for drug screening
• Dr Jane Sosabowski (Queen Mary University of London): MRI and pancreatic cancer
• Dr Rachel Tanner (University of Oxford): TB challenge in vitro
• Dr Joseph Turner (Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine): Dancing parasites and mice
• Dr Alessio Vagnoni (King’s College London): Flies and neuronal ageing research

Most of the case studies focus on replacement and reduction; we will be publishing a review of our activities in refinement and animal welfare later this year.

Read or download the Research Review (PDF), or find our previous reviews on our website.