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£20m Project Replaces Animal Testing
12 Aug
Summary
- Miniature human organs grown from patient cells will improve drug testing.
- This £20m Cambridge project aims to reduce animal use in research.
- Organoids offer more accurate results than traditional animal models.
Scientists in Cambridge are launching a major initiative, backed by £20 million in funding from the Medical Research Council, to grow miniature human organs and tissues from patients' cells. This groundbreaking project aims to create standardized, validated organoids that will be made available to researchers and the pharmaceutical industry.
The primary goal is to enhance the accuracy of drug testing and significantly reduce the reliance on animal models. Organoids, which are tiny clumps of human tissue, have shown the ability to mimic key features of full-scale organs, including disease progression and drug response. This allows for more precise investigations into how new drug candidates affect human biology.
Historically, a high percentage of drugs that pass animal tests ultimately fail in human trials. This new approach, leveraging 'new approach methodologies' like organoids, seeks to overcome these limitations. The strategy aligns with government plans to accelerate the reduction of animals in research. Early work will focus on organoids for inflammatory bowel diseases, with other teams developing brain and cancer organoids.
