#ANIMALRESEARCH

News from EARA

This page contains all the news outputs from EARA, including press releases and videos, EARA policy and news briefings, plus opinion pieces and significant media articles.

Other pages in this section explain more about EARA on social media and practical information for journalists.

Brain Prize winner emphasises essential need for animal research into Alzheimer’s

Bob Tolliday

Nov 15, 2018
2 min

Brain Prize winner emphasises essential need for animal research into Alzheimer’s

Basic researchers into Alzheimer disease awarded major scientific prize Today it was announced that the 2018 Brain Prize will be awarded to Bart De Strooper (VIB, KU Leuven and University College London), Michel Goedert (University of Cambridge), Christian Haass (DZNE, Ludwig-Maximilians-University) and John Hardy (UCL) for their groundbreaking research on the genetic and molecular basis of Alzheimer’s disease. The four researchers will share the 1 million EUR prize awarded b

Scientists in Europe must take more responsibility for openness, says EARA executive director

Bob Tolliday

Nov 15, 2018
2 min

Scientists in Europe must take more responsibility for openness, says EARA executive director

Openness and transparency surrounding the use of animals in research is ‘still an Achilles Heel’ for the biomedical sector, a roundtable hosted by the Federation of European Academies of Medicine (FEAM) last week has heard. Speaking at the meeting, EARA Executive Director, Kirk Leech, said: “The zeitgeist is openness and transparency for the biomedical sector, but this is still an Achilles Heel for many European institutions.” The meeting in Brussels, brought together high-le

Supporting excellent biomedical science in Europe

Bob Tolliday

Nov 15, 2018
3 min

Supporting excellent biomedical science in Europe

The first FEAM European Biomedical Policy Forum annual lecture took place in Brussels, in March, dedicated to the topic Biomedical and health research: developing a vision for Europe. The Forum is an initiative from the Federation of European Academies of Medicine (FEAM) and aims to bring together representatives from academia, research charities, industry, European and national trade associations and professional bodies, regulators, public health bodies, and patient and cons

Ebola vaccine in use thanks to ‘curiosity-driven’ basic research

Bob Tolliday

Nov 11, 2018
2 min

Ebola vaccine in use thanks to ‘curiosity-driven’ basic research

There was no known widespread outbreaks of Ebola when the vaccine was developed 15 years ago using animals, says Kirk Leech, EARA Executive Director. There’s a worrying new Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) — the second the country has faced since the largest-ever Ebola virus epidemic swept West Africa from 2014 to 2015. The World Health Organization (WHO) learned about the new outbreak in early May, but suspects that, since April, a total of 44 peo

Nobel Prize awarded for turning the immune system against cancer

Bob Tolliday

Aug 15, 2018
2 min

Nobel Prize awarded for turning the immune system against cancer

This year’s Nobel Prize winners for Physiology or Medicine used animal models to develop their novel cancer therapy. James P. Allison, of the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, USA, and Tasuku Honjo, of Kyoto University, Japan, discovered in mice a way of unleashing immune cells to attack tumours by turning off the safeguards in the immune system that prevent it from attacking human tissue. In turn, new drugs can now be developed offering hope to patients with adv

Bob Tolliday

Aug 31, 2016
4 min

Personhood for animals?

Animals are not capable of taking responsibility for their own actions, never mind having a say in how society is run, says EARA Executive Director, Kirk Leech. The new documentary, Unlocking the Cage, follows Steve Wise, a lawyer from the Nonhuman Rights Project (NhRP) who argues that animals should have the legal status of persons, and his attempt to make chimpanzee “rights” acknowledged and protected by law. The endeavour failed in December 2015 when the New York appeals c

Bob Tolliday

Aug 15, 2016
1 min

Animal research & Downton Abbey

In one of the goriest scenes on television last year, Lord Grantham of Downton Abbey collapsed after violently coughing up blood all over the dining table. It turned out to be a burst peptic ulcer. In Downton Abbey’s 1925 world, the doctor advised Lord Grantham to keep a healthy diet and to abstain from alcohol. But nearly a century later we have a much better understanding of the cause and treatment of peptic ulcers, partly thanks to animal research. The Foundation for Biome

3D-printed structures successfully implanted into animals

Bob Tolliday

Aug 15, 2016
1 min

3D-printed structures successfully implanted into animals

Scientists at the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine have managed to 3D print structures made of living cells that were successfully implanted into animals, as reported in Nature Biotechnology on Monday. The field of 3D-printed organs is not a new one, but these researchers managed to print all required components using the same printer and also allow for the growth of vasculature. The 3D-printed structures – ear, bone and muscle – were successfully implanted int

On Lab Animal Day, Belgian science unites in support of animal research

Bob Tolliday

Aug 15, 2016
3 min

On Lab Animal Day, Belgian science unites in support of animal research

This blog was also published on Huffington Post UK. World Day for Laboratory Animals on 24 April was originally established by animal rights activists to raise awareness for the fate of animals in laboratories. Every year on that day, they organise demonstrations and petitions against animal research. But this time, on behalf of 24 research institutions in Belgium, we wanted to raise awareness of the important biomedical research that would not be possible without research us

The Fight Against Zika Relies On Animal Research

Bob Tolliday

Aug 15, 2016
4 min

The Fight Against Zika Relies On Animal Research

This post was originally published on the website of the Foundation for Biomedical Research (FBR) on January 28, 2016. It is republished here with permission from FBR. The major public health problem of 2016 has been the sharp rise in the ongoing outbreak of the Zika virus, as well as its probable link to microcephaly in infants. While Zika has been on the rise since 2014, it has recently reached pandemic levels and is forecast to spread to nearly all of North America; outbre

Environmental factors can improve reproducibility

Bob Tolliday

Aug 15, 2016
1 min

Environmental factors can improve reproducibility

At a meeting on improving mouse models of disease held last week at the Wellcome Genome Campus in Cambridge, scientists and technicians came together to discuss opportunities to improve the reproducibility of research results obtained using mouse models. Nature reported on some of the environmental and biological factors that affect mouse studies. More and more research is emerging to show the effects of the microbiome on the body, so controlling lab animals’ diet is imperati

Reducing animals in toxicity research with a new database

Bob Tolliday

Feb 12, 2016
1 min

Reducing animals in toxicity research with a new database

Scientists at John’s Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland have developed a database compiling toxicity data of a large number of chemicals. This database could help predict health risks of as yet untested substances, thereby reducing the number animal studies necessary to determine toxicity. The database makes use of publicly available data collected by the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) under the REACH regulation (registration, evaluation, authorization and restrictio

Заявление в поддержку Директивы 2010/63/EU

Bob Tolliday

Jan 28, 2016
2 min

Заявление в поддержку Директивы 2010/63/EU

Заявление в поддержку Европейской Директивы 2010/63/EU (Директива) о защите животных, используемых в научных целях. Использование животных в научных исследованиях способствовало основным прорывам в медицине, которые обеспечивают здоровье людей и животных. Мы поддерживаем исследования на животных в тех случаях, когда альтернативные методы недоступны, когда потенциальная польза с точки зрения здоровья несомненна, и когда приемлемые этические стандарты и благополучие животных мо

Nobel Prize 2015: using animal research to get rid of parasites

Bob Tolliday

Jan 27, 2016
2 min

Nobel Prize 2015: using animal research to get rid of parasites

The 2015 Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine is shared between William C. Campbell and Satoshi Ōmura, and Youyou Tu, who contributed to fighting parasitic diseases, among which malaria. The research behind this year’s Nobel Prize in Medicine has once again relied on animal research – over the past 40 years, every Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine bar onehas done so. Youyou Tu’s group screened over 200 herbs from traditional Chinese medicine on monkey and mouse models

Why People Are Wrong to Oppose the New UK Beagle Breeding Facility

Bob Tolliday

Aug 19, 2015
4 min

Why People Are Wrong to Oppose the New UK Beagle Breeding Facility

Where do medicines come from? It’s not a question most of us bother with when we take advantage of the huge array of medical treatments available to us. All modern medicine is built on the ‘basic research’ which allows us to understand our physiology, and the diseases we suffer. Much of this research has been done, and continues to be done, in animals. Had Mering and Minkowski not shown the causal link between the pancreas and diabetes in dogs, we might never have discovered

Bob Tolliday

Aug 11, 2015
4 min

A Researcher’s Perspective

This post is a translation of a Dutch blog that was originally published on the Faces of Science website on March 12, 2015. Marieke Rienks, PhD student in Molecular Cardiology at Maastricht University Born in Leeuwarden, the Netherlands, Marieke Rienks completed her Master in Medicine in 2010 at Maastricht University. Her interest for Cardiology and Internal Medicine led her to pursue a PhD position focusing on the role of extracellular proteins in inflammatory heart muscle a

Bob Tolliday

Jul 27, 2015
7 min

Serendipity and Animal Research

Dr. Alberto Ferrari is a member of the managing board and of the scientific Committee of Pro-Test Italia, an association dedicated to correct scientific information on the topic of animal research in Italy. He has a Ph.D. in molecular medicine; during his training he has worked on animal models of psychiatric disorders. Currently, he is specializing in biostatistics and collaborates with the unity of medical statistics at the University of Pavia, Italy. Animal experimentation

Bob Tolliday

Jun 16, 2015
5 min

It’s All About the Animals

The following guest post is by Richard Marble RLATg, CMAR, Laboratory Animal Facility Coordinator at Ferris State University. In this article, he provides an insight into animal facilities from the perspective of a lab animal facility manager. Laboratory Animal Research and Testing. You hear about this controversial subject as a topic of discussion in the news quite often. You’ll see live video feeds on TV of animal rights protestors in front of research facilities or on gove

Bob Tolliday

Jun 16, 2015
3 min

Good News on Fast Tracked Ebola Vaccine

The current Ebola outbreak is the worst the world has ever seen with 22,000 infections and 9,000 deaths recorded so far. The epidemic has affected six West African nations with Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia among the worst hit. With a mortality rate between 50% and 90%, the virus spreads through the human population with devastating consequences. But the first batch of an experimental vaccine— now being sent to Liberia—offers fresh hope to control the disease. This is one

Bob Tolliday

May 15, 2015
8 min

Myth Busting: Stop Vivisection

In their most recent statement, the European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI) Stop Vivisection calls for a ‘new paradigm in biomedical science.’ In a letter addressed to MEPs, Stop Vivisection makes a range of claims as to why animal research is not only unnecessary, but also hindering medical progress. These arguments are unsurprisingly based on inaccurate and misused information. EARA goes through Stop Vivisection’s most recent publicity stunt to separate fact from fiction. Are