Non-Animal & Human-Relevant Research News: December 2024
While the animal research industry continues to breed, buy, cage, torture, and kill sentient beings, progressive scientists are busy proving that human-relevant science is not only possible but, in fact, better for us all. Highlights in science from the last month are below.
Space-Grown Brain Organoids Help Advance New Neurological Treatment
Staff, West Orlando News, 12/1/2024
“Biotechnology startup Axonis Therapeutics reprogrammed a virus to carry a novel gene therapy to neurons to treat neurological conditions like Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and spinal cord injury. The company needed a way to test the therapeutic in a mature human brain model, which is difficult to produce on Earth. To address this challenge, Axonis leveraged the International Space Station (ISS) National Laboratory to quickly grow 3D human brain organoids and test the therapeutic.” 📰 Full Story →
3D Printed Blood Vessels Could Help to End Animal Drug Testing
University of Strathclyde, Technology Networks, 12/2/2024
“A study which harnesses a pioneering 3D printing technique to create tiny human blood vessel structures could eventually help end the use of animals to test new drugs. The groundbreaking research . . . focuses on crafting microvasculature–small vessels critical for tissue health–that measure just 70 micrometres, smaller than a human hair . . . the smallest ever microvasculature to date.”
“The research team . . . say that being able to print human tissues at scale to create a more sophisticated drug screening platform could eventually end the use of animals in drug testing, which isn’t always accurate to show what’s happening in the human body.” 📰 Full Story →
Pancreas Organoid Breakthrough Sheds Light on Stem Cell Mysteries
synbiobeta, 12/2/2024
“ . . . scientists have coaxed tiny clumps of cells into an astonishing form: an organoid that mirrors the human fetal pancreas. This remarkable creation . . . represents a complete version of the pancreas in its early development.”
“For decades, researchers have struggled to reconstruct the pancreas’s intricate biology in a dish. This new model could offer a clearer window into how the pancreas forms, how it functions, and how it goes wrong, potentially opening doors to new treatments for diseases like diabetes and pancreatic cancer.” 📰 Full Story →
Modeling the Blood-Brain Barrier in a Dish
Sneha Khedkar, The Scientist, 12/3/2024
“The blood-brain barrier (BBB) regulates the passage of substances between the bloodstream and the brain, permitting essential nutrients and certain drugs to enter, while blocking harmful molecules. Disruptions to this critical function can lead to severe conditions like brain cancers and neurodegenerative disorders like Alzheimer’s disease. Despite its important physiology role in health and disease, scientists struggle to study this protective membrane, in part because the BBB of lab animals does not fully mimic the human BBB.”
“‘If we want to address BBB dysfunction, we have to have a good human BBB model,’ . . . Bridging this gap, Guo and his team developed brain organoids with a functional BBB that more closely mimics the organs in humans than previous mini-brain models.” 📰 Full Story →
AI beats experts in predicting future quality of ‘mini-organs’
Kyushu University, Medical Xpress, 12/6/2024
Researchers “have developed a model that uses artificial intelligence (AI) to predict organoid development at an early stage. The model, which is faster and more accurate than expert researchers, could improve the efficiency and lower the cost of culturing organoids.”
“ . . . the model has profound implications for current organoid research. ‘We can quickly and easily select high-quality organoids for transplantation and disease modeling, and reduce time and costs by identifying and removing organoids that are developing less well,’ . . . ‘It’s a game-changer.’” 📰 Full Story →
Lab-grown “mini-brains” shed light on severe autism and offer hope for treatment
Eric W. Dolan, PsyPost, 12/8/2024
Researchers “have used patient-derived stem cells to create brain organoids–also called ‘mini-brains’–to investigate a rare and severe form of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) linked to intellectual disability. These models provided insights into how a specific gene mutation disrupts brain development and allowed the team to test an experimental drug . . . which reversed some of the identified dysfunctions.” 📰 Full Story →
Lab-Grown Tumor Models Predict Glioblastoma Treatment Outcomes
University of Pennsylvania, Technology Networks, 12/9/2024
“For the first time, researchers used lab-grown organoids created from tumors of individuals with glioblastoma (GBM) to accurately model a patient’s response to CAR T cell therapy in real time. The organoid’s response to therapy mirrored the response of the actual tumor in the patient’s brain. That is, if the tumor-derived organoid shrunk after treatment, so did the patient’s actual tumor….”
“‘These organoids reflect what is happening in an individual’s brain with great accuracy, and we hope that they can be used in the future to “get to know” each patient’s distinctly complicated tumor and quickly determine which therapies would be most effective for them for personalized medicine.’”
“GBM is the most common–and most aggressive–type of cancerous brain tumor in adults. Individuals with GBM usually can expect to live just 12-18 months following their diagnosis. Despite decades of research, there is no known cure for GBM, and approved treatments–such as surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy–have limited effect in prolonging life expectancy.” 📰 Full Story →
Scientists Get to the Heart of Blood Formation
Iris Kulbatski, The Scientist, 12/11/2024
“Getting blood from a stone is impossible, but growing blood from 3D mini hearts is now a reality. A research team . . . previously used human pluripotent stem cells to produce heart-forming organoids (HFOs) in a dish. These primordial heart constructs display the multiple tissue layers that exist in the developing human heart. They also contain the latent capacity to produce blood cells. In a recent study . . . Zweigerdt and his team tweaked their HFO model to create blood-generating (BG)-HFOs, which recapitulate key aspects of embryonic blood cell development.” 📰 Full Story →
Newcells bags another £1.2m for lab models that replace animal testing
Northern Leaders, 12/6/2024
Newcells Biotech – whose laboratory models help speed up drug development and reduce reliance on animal testing – has raised a further £1.2 million from existing investors . . . The funding will enable the Newcastle-based company to build its customer base and seek new partnerships….”
“Newcells’ 3D models, which mimic tissues within the body, are used to test drugs under development and provide data to support key decisions on which drugs to progress into human trials. They enable companies to bring drugs to market more quickly and at lower cost than using animal testing and have also proven to be better at predicting how a drug will behave in the human body.” 📰 Full Story →
First-ever tumor organoids grown in laboratory
Pranjal Malewar, Tech Explorist, 12/11/2024
“Pancreatic cancers- one of the most lethal cancers, has an exceptionally high mortality rate. One reason is that effective treatments are hard to find because different cancer cells in the same tumor can respond very differently to the same treatment. Pancreatic cancer cells are very varied, not just in their shape but also in how dangerous they are, such as how aggressive they grow.”
“A team . . . has, for the first time, recreated the complex shape of pancreatic cancer cell clusters in the lab . . . The new organoids could help create more personalized treatments. Doctors could tailor therapies more effectively by understanding the specific phenotypes in a patient’s tumor and how they respond to different treatments.” 📰 Full Story →
World-1st tubular ‘mini intestine’ crafted by Japan researchers from human iPS cells
The Mainichi, 12/12/2024
“In a world first, a pipelike ‘miniature intestine’ has been created using human iPS [] cells. Until now, only spherical lumps of material a few millimeters across had been made using human iPS cells, but this time, using special techniques the researchers successfully recreated something like the actual structure of an intestine. The team is hopeful this will one day lead to alternatives for intestinal transplants.” 📰 Full Story →
Mini-Brains Reveal New Insights Into Mitochondrial Brain Disorders
Neuroscience News, 12/14/2024
“Researchers . . . have used advanced stem cell technology to develop mini-brains, also called brain organoids, that can mimic disease processes caused by mitochondrial failure. This could open new avenues for treating serious brain diseases such as epilepsy.”
“‘The mini-brains give us a unique opportunity to understand disease mechanisms at the cellular level and test potential treatments.’ . . . The mini-brains offer a valuable model for exploring complex disease processes and testing treatment strategies in a realistic but controlled environment.” 📰 Full Story →
Assembloids illuminate circuit-level changes linked to autism, neurodevelopment
Sarah Deweerdt, The Transmitter, 12/19/2024
“ . . . a series of recent studies . . . highlight the potential for assembloids [“lab-grown combinations of spherical organoids that mimic different parts of the nervous system”] to help researchers understand brain development at the circuit level, and how these circuits go awry in autism and other neurodevelopmental conditions.”
“Autism, after all, involves differences in how various parts of the brain connect with each other . . . ‘So to be able to model that in vitro is exactly what we need to be doing to be able to understand these network dysfunction disorders,’….” 📰 Full Story →
Lymphomoids: A lab model of lymphoma tumors
Pranjal Malewar, Tech Explorist, 12/20/2024
. . . this innovative ex vivo model, [] called lymphomatoids, is proposed as a platform for personalized lymphoma treatment and is a significant milestone in the unceasing quest for better therapies.”
“Clinicians can test treatments on lymphoids grown from tumor specimens obtained from patients and identify the optimal therapy before starting actual treatment, thus allowing patients to avoid unnecessary side effects and improve their response rates.” 📰 Full Story →
Full master class in animal-free safety assessment now launched
Animal-Free Safety Assessment, Politico, 12/27/2024
“Evidence is accumulating that non-animal approaches to chemical safety are outperforming the old animal-reliant systems.”
“ . . . the Animal-Free Safety Assessment Collaboration (AFSA) gathered a global team of toxicology experts to develop a free, online training course that focuses on the safety assessment of cosmetic products and ingredients without new animal data. The AFSA Master Class covers all aspects of the safety assessment process, from the initial problem formulation through to the final assessment conclusion.”
“Since the course launched, over 1,250 users from 76 different countries have enrolled, demonstrating the growing global appetite for training on cruelty-free testing methods.” 📰 Full Story →
The future of 3D cell cultures in biomedical research
Chase Craig, Sciworthy, 12/30/2024
“ . . . 3D cell cultures provide more accurate models for drug testing, cancer research, and tissue engineering. They could therefore reduce researchers’ reliance on animal models, streamline drug development, and lead to safer, effective treatments. Yet, despite their many advantages, 3D cell cultures still come with challenges like high costs, technical complexity, and the need for standardization which continue to hinder their widespread adoption.” 📰 Full Story →
Breakthrough Bacteria: Sustainable Solution for Growing Organoids
The University Network, 12/31/2024
“Researchers . . . have unveiled a groundbreaking method to grow organoids using a bacterial protein named Invasin. This innovative approach . . . offers a sustainable, cost-effective and animal-free alternative to existing techniques.”
“This technological advancement opens up new possibilities for medical research and drug development, signifying a major shift in how lab-grown tissues can be cultivated sustainably and affordably.” 📰 Full Story →