Animal Testing on the Way Out?, The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) , University of Oxford Awarded, National Centre for the Replacement, Refinement, and Reduction of Animals in Research (NC3Rs), Texas A&M University, Dept. of Veterans Affairs, Prisoners of waste, Project Chimps
Award-Winning Technology Could Replace Animal Testing for Pharmaceuticals. For many decades, animal advocates have been fighting to free animals used in laboratories. Millions of animals like non-human primates, dogs, cats, and rodents like rats, rabbits, and mice are routinely used in laboratories testing on everything from cosmetics and household products to pharmaceutical drugs. Life for lab animals is dismal at best, and most undergo extreme torture and pain before being discarded like disposable objects. Animal testing is notorious for not being effective, as the biology of the animals differs greatly from the biology of humans. Thankfully, there is a hopeful sign that animal testing will become a thing of the past with an award-winning technology that virtually mimics human biology!
This week, the UK-based National Centre for the Replacement, Refinement, and Reduction of Animals in Research (NC3Rs) awarded a team at the University of Oxford with its 2017 International award and $30,000 for their research in utilizing virtual computer simulations instead of animals for lab tests. Using “Virtual Assay” software, the team created a computer model of human cardiac cells and conducted thousands of simulated tests to see how the cells were affected by 62 drugs and 15 compounds often used in research. The results were surely impressive — when testing if a drug or compound could cause arrhythmia (irregular heartbeat), the computer technology was accurate 89 percent of the time, compared to 75 percent accuracy in similar tests conducted on rabbits.
Lead author and researcher at Oxford’s computer science department, Elisa Passini, told Gizmodo that this virtual technology has the potential to save animals from being used and killed in laboratories. “Current strategies for drug cardiotoxicity assessment involve a combination of preclinical studies using a variety of animal species … This screening phase can easily exceed the use of 60,000 animals a year (an underestimation), and this is where our models could play a major role in replacement.”
Congrats to this team of scientists for their award and achievements! We hope this technology develops further and begins to replace animal testing as soon as possible.
At Texas A&M University, experimenters led by Joe Kornegay breed golden retrievers to develop canine muscular dystrophy. This disease ravages their bodies, causing progressive muscle wasting and weakness. Studies with these dogs haven't led to a cure or even a treatment to reverse disease symptoms. If you plan to see the film Isle of Dogs, we hope you'll take action for these real dogs!
President Trump just
signed a bill
to defund most — if not all — of the Dept. of Veterans
Affairs' painful dog experiments! We've launched an adoption
drive in Congress to retire the survivors into to loving homes. But
we haven't fully-funded this campaign yet and we're up against a key budget
The VA injects latex into these 5-month-old puppies' arteries. It forces them to run on treadmills in heart attack tests. It drills holes into their skulls.
When they die, the VA throws them into garbage bags — like trash.
Trump's defund will end the wasteful government spending. It's a key first step, and you made it happen.
These "Prisoners of Waste" (POW) have suffered horribly. And we must not leave any POWs behind!
So please rush an immediate gift to help retire these survivors into loving homes!
This week, the UK-based National Centre for the Replacement, Refinement, and Reduction of Animals in Research (NC3Rs) awarded a team at the University of Oxford with its 2017 International award and $30,000 for their research in utilizing virtual computer simulations instead of animals for lab tests. Using “Virtual Assay” software, the team created a computer model of human cardiac cells and conducted thousands of simulated tests to see how the cells were affected by 62 drugs and 15 compounds often used in research. The results were surely impressive — when testing if a drug or compound could cause arrhythmia (irregular heartbeat), the computer technology was accurate 89 percent of the time, compared to 75 percent accuracy in similar tests conducted on rabbits.
Lead author and researcher at Oxford’s computer science department, Elisa Passini, told Gizmodo that this virtual technology has the potential to save animals from being used and killed in laboratories. “Current strategies for drug cardiotoxicity assessment involve a combination of preclinical studies using a variety of animal species … This screening phase can easily exceed the use of 60,000 animals a year (an underestimation), and this is where our models could play a major role in replacement.”
Congrats to this team of scientists for their award and achievements! We hope this technology develops further and begins to replace animal testing as soon as possible.
At Texas A&M University, experimenters led by Joe Kornegay breed golden retrievers to develop canine muscular dystrophy. This disease ravages their bodies, causing progressive muscle wasting and weakness. Studies with these dogs haven't led to a cure or even a treatment to reverse disease symptoms. If you plan to see the film Isle of Dogs, we hope you'll take action for these real dogs!
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The VA injects latex into these 5-month-old puppies' arteries. It forces them to run on treadmills in heart attack tests. It drills holes into their skulls.
When they die, the VA throws them into garbage bags — like trash.
Trump's defund will end the wasteful government spending. It's a key first step, and you made it happen.
These "Prisoners of Waste" (POW) have suffered horribly. And we must not leave any POWs behind!
So please rush an immediate gift to help retire these survivors into loving homes!
Animal Testing on the Way Out? | |||||
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is working to reduce and replace the use of vertebrate animals in its chemical safety testing program and is seeking comments on its strategic plan to meet that goal. This is the accumulation of decades of work by dedicated organizations and activists, so it’s important to keep the momentum going.
Tens of thousands of animals, particularly mice, rats, and fish, could be spared from lethal dose tests and suffering in other tests measuring corrosivity, irritancy, carcinogenicity, and developmental toxicity.
The biggest hurdle was overcome in June 2016 when Congress passed the Frank Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act, which called for the modernization of chemical testing required by the 40-year-old Toxic Substance Control Act.
The Act requires EPA to “reduce and replace…the use of vertebrate animals in the testing of chemical substances or mixtures.”
You can help create meaningful, lasting change for animals! Tell the EPA that you support its effort to replace the use of animals with alternatives in chemical safety tests.
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