£4.85M to accelerate the use of non-animal approaches in research
21 awards have been supported with funding from the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) to accelerate the uptake of non-animal approaches and replace animal-derived products in research and testing.
The NC3Rs has been pioneering the development, validation and adoption of models that apply the latest technological advances to replace animal use in research and testing for the past 20 years. The success of replacement approaches and the scientific benefits they can offer is one of the drivers behind decreasing animal use, with recent statistics showing that the number of scientific procedures involving living animals in Great Britain in 2023 was the lowest since 2001.
Despite the fall in animal use, there can be significant barriers to the use of non-animal approaches and the new awards, totalling £4.85M, aim to help address this. The awards have been made possible by funding from DSIT, reflecting the government’s support for the scientific community to minimise laboratory animal use. The funding is focused on two key areas: providing infrastructure and validating the use of non-animal derived products. The awards include collaborations across disciplines, sectors and institutes nationwide.
“The NC3Rs has led the way for the past 20 years in developing, validating and promoting the adoption of non-animal approaches in the biosciences. This substantive investment from DSIT is a major landmark in our journey, enabling a step-change in infrastructure to advance the work at scale and paving the way for non-animal derived products to become the reagents of choice in in vitro studies.”
Professor Julia Buckingham CBE, NC3Rs Board Chair
Setting the foundations for change
Infrastructure is key to bridge the gap between the development and widespread use of non-animal approaches. For a scientist, lab or institute to take up a model, they need specialist equipment, access to the necessary samples and reagents, and new skills, expertise and training. Providing the infrastructure required to support the use of non-animal approaches at scale requires significant investment. The 11 infrastructure awards, totalling £3.95M will set the foundations for sustained change and make non-animal approaches accessible to more scientists than ever before.
The era of animal-free in vitro
In vitro approaches that use cells to model human physiology and disease, including 3D tissue models and organ-on-chips, are major routes to replace animal studies but often use products or reagents derived from animals to grow cells in the lab or to analyse experiments (e.g. foetal bovine serum or antibodies raised in animals). Animal-free alternatives are available but further action is needed to increase awareness and confidence in how they can be used. The ten awards totalling £905k are intended to support this step-change and pave the way for non-animal derived products to become the default choice for researchers.
Non-animal methods infrastructure awards: £3.95M
The BetaCell Birmingham facility currently supports academics across the UK with insulin secreting organoids derived from human stem cells for diabetes research but demand exceeds supply. Ildem and the team will expand the production capacity of the facility by transitioning to a larger perfusion-based suspension bioreactor and introducing automation. This will increase the number of organoids they can provide to researchers to replace mouse-derived islets, replacing up to 45,000 mice used in diabetes research in the UK each year.
Further information can be found on the portfolio page: BetaCell Birmingham
The award will allow Hannah to purchase of a novel probe system capable of real-time monitoring within the lumen of the gastrointestinal tract that can be used with in vitro and machine learning approaches to help predict the oral bioavailability and performance of new drugs, replacing the use of some animal studies for formulation and bioavailability purposes. The University of Strathclyde will be the first institute outside of industry to have access to the probe, which will be made widely available to the community.
Further information can be found on the portfolio page: Revolutionising relative bioavailability testing: Using AI-PAT to eliminate animal models
The award will allow Andrew to purchase a new bioreactor to expand the production of organoids for use by groups across the University of Warwick to replace rodents in studies of human reproductive diseases. The funding builds on a previous NC3Rs award to Andrew for the development of a complex in vitro model that combines endometrial and myometrial organoids.
Further information can be found on the portfolio page: Bioreactor infrastructure for organoid culture in human models of reproductive diseases
The award will allow Pablo to purchase equipment, consumables and training materials to establish a high throughput facility to generate lymphoid organoids prepared from human tonsil and spleen tissue for immunology studies a field that relies heavily on animal models. The facility will provide lymphoid organoids for researchers at the University of Oxford and across the UK.
Further information can be found on the portfolio page: Establishing a human lymphoid organoid and explant hub to replace animal models in immunology research
The award will support Kenneth to purchase 3D bioprinting equipment for use at three establishments – the Universities of Cambridge, Newcastle and Bristol with the technology being used to allow novel applications for in vitro models of tissue development and disease that increase their utility to replace animal use. The funding also supports the delivery of demonstration workshops to a wider community of researchers, including within the GW4 alliance.
Further information can be found on the portfolio page: Novel bioprinters for 3D In Vitro Models (3D-IV)
The award will allow Lahiru to purchase equipment to establish the first human stem cell-based research facility for autoantibody-mediated brain disorders in the UK, supplying the neuroimmunity community with cells to replace an assay that uses cerebrospinal fluid collected from the brains of neonatal rats. The funding also supports the development of a new platform for sharing methodologies and control data.
Further information can be found on the portfolio page: Upscaling human stem cell assays to detect autoantibodies in central nervous system diseases
The award will allow Tamas to purchase equipment and consumables to establish a core facility that provides organ-on-chip and organoid models to scientists studying gastrointestinal biology and disease at Imperial College London and 15 other institutes across the UK, allowing animal replacement models to be used in a range of disciplines related to gut health and the microbiome.
Further information can be found on the portfolio page: Establishing a core infrastructure for enhancing gut health, disease and microbiome research using advanced non-animal models
The award will allow Crispin to launch a computational platform that supports large-scale cancer model data analysis, integrating data from various model systems including animal, in vitro and in silico approaches, helping oncology researchers select the most appropriate non-animal models to use that best represent patient cohorts and phenotypes.
Further information can be found on the portfolio page: DAR3T: Data Analysis of 3Rs Tools
Hazel’s award will enable the expansion of the QMUL Centre for Predictive in vitro Models as a large-scale bioengineering facility supporting the fabrication and use of organ-on-chip technology across the UK in industry and academia. The funding supports the purchase of equipment and consumables, the provision of hands-on training and the development of an online resource to share the ‘know-how’ for adopting on-chip technologies to replace the use of animals.
Further information can be found on the portfolio page: A world-class in vitro models facility for the UK community, reducing the barriers to adoption to drive animal replacement
The award will allow Kate to purchase liquid handling robots and an automated microscope system to increase the capacity of the stem cell facility at the University of Dundee which currently provide cells to 14 research groups – it will enable more researchers to replace animal models in research into neurodegeneration and kidney and heart diseases.
Further information can be found on the portfolio page: Scaling up human pluripotent stem cell delivery and distribution facilitating reduction in animal use
This award will allow Selina to purchase equipment, including robotics, to establish a core facility that provides reprogrammed human induced-pluripotent stem cell lines and organoids at scale to researchers across UCL, helping to replace some animal studies for research into neurological disorders. The funding also supports work to standardise operating protocols to ensure the stem cell lines and organoid models are high quality and robust, and hands-on training courses for postdoctoral researchers and students to enable wider roll-out of the models.
Further information can be found on the portfolio page: A core facility for human induced pluripotent stem cells for neurological disease
Non-animal derived product validation awards: £905k
Cinzia will assess the utility of animal-free products – including serum free-media, synthetic matrices and non-animal derived antibodies – in a 3D breast organoid model using human induced-pluripotent stem cells for studying cancer development and progression. The funding builds on work carried out during an NC3Rs PhD studentship.
Further information can be found on the portfolio page: Validation of non-animal derived products for stem cell-derived breast cancer organoid models
Working with industrial partners, Mattea will replace the use of Matrigel, derived from a mouse sarcoma model, with an animal-free peptide hydrogel scaffold developed with previous NC3Rs funding and characterise its use in an in vitro model of neurodegeneration. The characterisation studies will involve various cellular readouts and drug screening.
Further information can be found on the portfolio page: Towards a clinical-trial-in-a-dish: Validating an animal product free stem cell-derived 3D model of Alzheimer’s disease for drug discovery
Victoria will work with industry collaborators and international partners to undertake a multi-laboratory validation of six non-animal alternatives to replace rat S9 (metabolic enzymes derived from rat liver) and fetal bovine serum in an OECD Test Guideline for genotoxicity. The award follows on from previous NC3Rs funding in the animal-free in vitro CRACK IT Challenge and is intended to build confidence for regulatory acceptance of an animal-free protocol for the micronucleus test.
Further information can be found on the portfolio page: Multi-laboratory validation of a new animal product-free test guideline addition for the in vitro micronucleus test
Deepak will use a 3D printed synthetic blood vessel to replace the use of animal-derived materials and live animals, typically rats, for microsurgical training purposes. He will work with clinicians to incorporate the approach into surgical training and engage with academic and industry partners to use the synthetic vessel to train researchers in microvascular surgery.
Further information can be found on the portfolio page: Revolutionizing micro-surgical training by reducing and replacing animal dependency through synthetic biomimetic 3D printed blood vessels
Helen will characterise the use of human induced pluripotent stem cell derived cardiomyocytes to replace rat cells in an in vitro approach for cardiovascular disease modelling and drug testing. The work builds on two technologies previously developed with NC3Rs funding.
Further information can be found on the portfolio page: An animal-free future for heart research: functional characterisation of novel refined human engineered heart tissue
Fiona will build confidence in animal-free cell culture for complex in vitro models for nanotoxicity testing by evaluating and characterising non-animal derived products provided by the contract research organisation Scinora. The work will test the effects of different media on two widely used human cell lines (Calu-3 lung adenocarcinoma and THP-1 monocytes) both in monoculture and a co-culture system using a standardised operating protocol.
Further information can be found on the portfolio page: Validation of Scinora serum-free media formulations and Xplace supplement for the development of animal-free NAMs for nanotoxicology
Manuela and the Crick’s cell services team will conduct a large-scale study to test five commercially available animal-free serum formulations on 50 different cell lines used by scientists from a range of disciplines. They will characterise and compare the effect of different serums on cellular morphology and behaviour – by building confidence for scientists working at the Institute and across their industry partners to switch to synthetic serum, the work could replace the use of over 1,900 calves each year.
Further information can be found on the portfolio page: Calf-Free Research: Developing robust approaches to replace foetal calf serum (FCS) with synthetic alternatives in cell culture
Julia will characterise and compare 50 non-animal derived antibodies (both primary and secondary) alongside animal-free serum for cell culture in four key research functions across the Institute including in flow cytometry, proteomics, microscopy facilities and centralised tissue culture protocols. These studies will build confidence in the use of non-animal reagents and their adoption which could replace the use of 6,000 animals each year.
Further information can be found on the portfolio page: Investigating the replacement of non-animal derived antibodies and serum in academic research
Christian will collaborate with an industry partner to validate the replacement of secondary antibodies in diagnostic lateral flow tests with synthetic proteins, called affimers, developed as part of an NC3Rs-funded studentship. Lateral flow tests use secondary antibodies that are typically produced in a variety of species including goats, sheep and donkeys. This proof-of-concept study alone could lead to the replacement of hundreds of animals if affimer proteins could be applied to lateral flow tests.
Further information can be found on the portfolio page: Direct replacement of secondary antibodies by affimer proteins in lateral flow devices
Harvinder will collaborate with nine research groups at the Universities of Leicester and Nottingham to characterise affimers as alternatives to animal-derived antibodies. He will also work with manufacturing partners to replace commercially available animal-derived antibodies in their catalogues with non-animal alternatives where they are shown to offer improved specificity and performance.
Further information can be found on the portfolio page: Characterisation of antibodies and affinity reagents to promote the adoption of robust and reproducible non-animal reagents