DFG Honours Alternatives to Animal Testing

The Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) has honoured scientists who are improving animal welfare in research, awarding the 2011 Ursula M. Händel Animal Welfare Prize to Dr Arne Hansen, Alexander Eder, Sebastian Schaaf and Professor Thomas Eschenhagen from the University Hospital Hamburg Eppendorf, and to Dr Maria Moreno-Villanueva and Professor Alexander Bürkle from the University of Konstanz. The prize, awarded by DFG President Matthias Kleiner, is endowed with 50,000 Euros to be shared between the two winning teams. It was presented on January 24 in Berlin, at a DFG event that brought together scientists, politicians and the general public for a dialogue on animal testing.

The research team around Thomas Eschenhagen at the University Hospital Hamburg-Eppendorf investigates the effects of pharmacological substances on the human heart and used human embryonic stem cells as a replacement for animals to test the cardiac effects and to screen agents used. This method, already in the advanced stages of development, also makes it possible to conduct and analyse tests in a largely automated fashion.

The prize winners from Konstanz, Maria Moreno-Villanueva and Alexander Bürkle, examine genotoxicity, which is the altering effect of chemical substances on the genetic material of cells. This previously would require large quantities of serum obtained from bovine foetuses; in contrast, the prizewinning method injects a dye into cells that fluoresces in varying ways depending on the effect of the substance being tested. This patent-pending method is likewise highly automated and allows a large number of substances to be tested within a short time.

The award presentation was accompanied by a panel discussion on animal testing in basic research, with a special focus on the opportunities and limitations of alternative methods. The current occasion was the introduction of new EU guidelines on the protection of laboratory animals, which must now be converted to national law.