Human Models for Human Disease: The Animal Replacement Centre of Excellence

There are very few topics that can initiate the same level of heated and polarised debate as when discussing the use of animals in medical research. I’m sure that many of us can recall such heated debates, either within the formal setting of a university debating society, sensationalised televised debates, or increasingly in modern times, through the various social media channels. During the course of these debates, even as an observer, one cannot help forming their own views and in decades gone by the argument would often centre on compassion and ethics. This ethical focus, whilst implicit, is changing and frequently the theme of discussion centres around that of animal ‘alternatives’ or the myriad of technologies now available to assist the accelerated field of ‘animal replacement’.

It is important to appreciate that in this context ‘animal-replacement’ can be used as a suitable term to describe either the avoidance of using animals or replacement in a direct sense. Increasingly, animal-replacement features the avoidance of animal-models altogether to develop, validate and apply human models for human disease and consequently improve human relevancy or to address the issues surrounding the so called, ‘translational-gap’.
The evidence for the need to use “human-relevant methods” to understand human disease is growing. Over the past few years, many papers have been published, identifying the issues surrounding the use of animals in biomedical research as well as showing us how research can and should take place without the need to use animals (Akhtar, 2015; Pound & Bracken, 2014; Kehinde, 2013; Pound et al., 2004).

Artificially emulating human disease physiology or elucidating human toxicity pathways can be immensely complex and varied. It is imperative that to continue advancing our understanding of human biology and to ensure we have an increased approval rate of safe and effective drugs reaching the market we should fully embrace the ever-growing toolbox of non-animal technologies. Multidisciplinary research activities are now common place - biologists, chemists, physicists, engineers, mathematicians and computer scientists working together to implement the next generation of technologies to advance human health and reduce the reliance on often unreliable (and ethically questionable) animal-models. Many such approaches are already in existence and available to be used now or are in the later stages of official scientific validation (through official reference laboratories such as EURL-ECVAM) or scientific acceptance.

There is still much work to be done, not only in animal-replacement technology development and validation but also to address societal norms and an institutionalised culture of animal-model reliance. A recent Ipsos MORI poll investigating public attitudes to animal research in 2016 reported that while 71% of the public accepted the use of animals in scientific research (featuring defined caveats), 74% of the public agreed that more work is needed into alternatives to animal research.

The Dr Hadwen Trust (DHT), a UK based charity dedicated to the promotion and funding of animal-replacement research activities has over the last 5 years alone invested in excess of £4 million addressing the public desire that more work should be done to reduce the reliance on animal-models through many different avenues. Late in 2016 the DHT and Queen Mary University of London, opened the Animal Replacement Centre of Excellence (The ARC) at their, world renowned, Blizard Institute.

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