What is research assessment reform, and what does it have to do with animal experiments? 🔬 Expand this 🧵 to learn why the COLAAB has officially signed onto @dorassessment.bsky.social! ✒ #AnimalMethodsBias #ResearchAssessment #ResearchCulture #AcademicCommunity

This narrow focus penalizes research that counters the status quo, including the animal experimentation paradigm that is upheld by decades of embedded preference, infrastructure, and culture, as well as entire industries with vested interests in maintaining it. 3/9

🆕📌 77% of clinical drug failures are attributed to biological factors typically assessed in experiments on animals before human trials begin. After 60 years, "standardizing" or "improving" experiments on animals has not reduced clinical attrition. Research modernization is needed NOW.

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Coalition to Illuminate and Address Animal Methods Bias@thecolaab.bsky.social · 2w ago

Exciting news‼️ Today, @elsevierconnect.bsky.social's journal Toxicology announced policy changes to help mitigate #AnimalMethodsBias during peer review. The changes are detailed in this piece by Editor-in-Chief Mathieu Vinken: doi.org/10.1016/j.to... Key changes listed below 🧵 ⤵️

🐱 The COLAAB member spotlight series continues with @mikalahsinger.bsky.social! 🐱 Mikalah Singer, JD, LLM, is a science policy specialist with @pcrm.org and has been a member of the COLAAB Mitigation Working Group since 2024. She is based in Portland, Oregon. #SciPol

"Medicine isn’t a fast-moving field, but it has always adapted when better technology arrived: the stethoscope gave way to the imaging scan; the scalpel to the laparoscope. Better tools for testing drugs are already here. It’s time we start using them." www.weforum.org/stories/emer...

Why it’s time to phase out animal testing in pharma

Primate testing is no longer the scientific gold standard. Here is why the pharmaceutical industry must commit to a human-first timeline by 2030.

weforum.org

From @mayoclinic.org's Saranya Wyles, MD, PhD, on dermatological research: “Traditional approaches rely heavily on animal testing, but skin biology varies widely across species. Even commonly used preclinical models fall short when it comes to mimicking human skin conditions such as eczema.”

Another example of how non-animal methods are modeling complex, multi-organ diseases & uncovering the mechanisms underlying interdependent organ dysfunction: We know that communication between the heart & kidneys is essential for maintaining function, but how do these organs communicate? 🧵

How is the media shaping public perceptions of #xenotransplantation? 🐷 A newly published study from NYU and collaborators analyzed 208 print media articles covering experimental pig-to-human transplants in the U.S. Some findings stood out: 🧵 #medialiteracy #transplant #bioethics

Animal methods bias is showing up in more discussions about the barriers to reducing animal experimentation. In this 🧵, we discuss two recent pieces in @springernature.com's Journal of Translational Medicine. #AnimalMethodsBias #InstitutionalInertia 🧪

Both publications point to the same constraint: Peer review expectations can undermine efforts to reduce animal use. Addressing animal methods bias is key to removing this barrier. #NAMs #NonAnimalMethods #ScientificParadigm

Which human kidney model is the best for your research question? With the recent boom in advanced human kidney models, @thecleverslab.bsky.social benchmarked these systems to help researchers choose the most appropriate model for their studies. 🧪 #Nephsky #RenalSky

Live animals are still used in some trauma surgery training, but advances like these from @ntunews.bsky.social demonstrate that realistic, clinically relevant training needs no animal use. The team developed lifelike torso models that ❤️ beat 🫁 breathe, & 🩸 bleed using synthetic blood.

Check out this incredible resource created through a large‑scale, team science effort! ~90 scientists from the @alleninstitute.org & UW worked together to map Alzheimer’s disease across the human brain at single‑cell resolution. 🗺️🧠 #neuroskyence #alzsky #brainmap #singlecell

New review from @wyssinstitute.bsky.social on #OrgansOnChips, including their use as preclinical tools, applications in drug discovery, how they compare with other preclinical models, and what's needed to make them even better. #OrganChip #OrganOnAChip #Preclinical #Pharmsky #NAMs 🧪 💊

Out now in Advanced Drug Delivery Reviews: 🧠Our new review highlights in vitro models, from basic to advanced, that replicate the interplay between glioblastoma and the blood-brain barrier. These tools can support more efficient preclinical research. 🔗Link: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Glioblastoma and blood-brain barrier cell interplay in vitro models for stratification of drug efficacy

Glioblastoma (GBM) is the most lethal brain cancer in adults, with a dismal prognosis and no curative therapies available. The treatment landscape rem…

sciencedirect.com

5️⃣ #funding opportunities are open through the NIH Common Fund's PRIMED‑AI program 🖥️👩‍⚕️🎯 Support is available for projects combining medical imaging with other health data to build clinical decision tools for patient care. Details: commonfund.nih.gov/primed-ai #NIHFunding #PrecisionMedicine 🧪

Check out SAO's re-cap of #Shock2026! 🧪 Dr. Gabby Vidaurre presented her poster, "Modernizing Sepsis Research to Advance Human Health," heard updates from NIH on priorities for sepsis research, & caught up with investigators across the country doing excellent human-based research in this field.

🥇 What do "gold standard," "fidelity," "transferability," & "sustainability" actually measure in #SurgicalSimulation? In this new blog, SAO's Donya Mand, MD draws from 2️⃣ recent conferences to examine curriculum, assessment, & the role of animal use in surgical education. ⬇️ Link #MedSky #SurgSky

Laboratory animal personnel as secondary victims of animal experimentation In this new paper, Milford et al. use the "psychosocial hierarchy of controls" to show how the same practices that produce pain, suffering, and death in animals also harm the people who carry them out. 🧵 #bioethics

It's incredible what we can learn when we use innovative tools to ask and answer direct, mechanistic questions about the human brain. 💫🧠💫 Jing Cai and colleagues at MGH recorded wide-scale, single-neuron activity in humans having real-time conversations. ️ 🧵 Coverage by @maxkozlov.bsky.social 👇

Nature@nature.com · 2mo ago

Researchers have tracked the electrical crackle of individual brain cells in real time during unscripted conversations, capturing how sentences are built before a single word is spoken go.nature.com/4uOEKii

🚨💰🔬 #NIDDK is seeking applications for the next phase of the @kpmproject.bsky.social, specifically to lead the project's Central Hub. ⌛ July 10 files.simpler.grants.gov/opportunitie... 🏷️ #liversky #nephsky #NIHFunding #NIHGrant #NIDDK #U24 #NOFO #ResearchFunding #KidneyResearch #PrecisionMedicine

📉 @gallup.com's annual moral acceptability poll has been conducted since 2001. 2026 marks the first year more Americans viewed medical testing on animals as morally wrong (48%) than morally acceptable (45%). Another 6% had no opinion or said it depends. news.gallup.com/poll/710981/... #morality

Here is the published version of our work iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1...

A functional placenta-on-chip model for maternal-fetal transport

A functional placenta-on-chip model for maternal-fetal transport, Bhide, Anshul, Mukherjee, Sourav, Ghosh, Kinjalka, Majumder, Abhijit, Modi, Deepak

iopscience.iop.org

📌 #Fellowship and #Postdoc opportunities at NIH! DPCPSI is partnering with ORISE to offer several positions for early-career scientists interested in #NAMs and other human-centered research, as well as training opportunities in science policy and programming. A few are with the new #ORIVA!

Pregnancy involves dynamic interactions between maternal & fetal tissues that are difficult to capture in conventional in vitro models. 🤰 @utoronto.ca scientists review human pregnancy-associated #organsonchips that model the placental barrier fetal membranes, & other relevant physiology.

How does blood flow affect endothelial responses to vascular inflammation and clotting caused by #COVID-19? @jainlabtamu.bsky.social used a human vessel chip to test how flow regulates endothelial structure, barrier function, inflammation, & thrombosis during #SARSCoV2 infection. #IDsky #virology

Groundbreaking study! A multidisciplinary team led by the @wyssinstitute.bsky.social created donor-specific organ chips using tissue biopsies from human patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and healthy controls. wyss.harvard.edu/news/decodin... #Gastrosky #GIsky #IBD #organchip

Decoding inflammatory bowel disease – on a chip

By Benjamin Boettner (BOSTON) — Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), which comprises the inflammatory conditions Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis, affects about 1.6 million Americans, many of whom ...

wyss.harvard.edu

It me! The COLAAB is one of my favorite communities and projects!

Coalition to Illuminate and Address Animal Methods Bias@thecolaab.bsky.social · last mo.

This week, our COLAAB member spotlight series features: 💫 Emily Trunnell, PhD! 💫 @ertrunnell.bsky.social is the director of Science Advancement & Outreach, a division of PETA. She has been with the #COLAAB Mitigation Working Group since 2022, and is based in Tennessee, USA. 🧵

🚨 Attention U.S. cancer researchers 🎗️ Recent #NCI funding opportunities seek to support human-relevant technologies and biospecimens, clinically relevant models, and integrated human datasets. 🧵 #NIH #NIHFunding #NOFO #RFA #CancerResearch #CancerSky #Oncsky #Oncosky #biospecimens #bioinformatics