Prizes awarded for new research improving animal welfare in the life sciences
12 March 2012
The prizes were awarded by the National Centre for the Replacement, Refinement and Reduction of Animals in Research (NC3Rs). An independent scientific organisation funded by the Government, industry and charities (including the Wellcome Trust), the NC3Rs works to foster innovative thinking and stimulate changes in research practice that will advance the '3Rs': replacement, refinement and reduction.
A widely accepted ethical framework for conducting scientific experiments using animals humanely, the 3Rs refer to new procedures that will replace the need for animals in research, refine procedures to minimise harm or reduce the numbers used.
As part of its mission, the NC3Rs awards an annual prize for research by a UK-based scientist published in a peer-reviewed journal in the past three years that makes an original contribution to scientific and technological advances in the 3Rs. Sponsored by GlaxoSmithKline, the 3Rs Prize consists of a research grant of £18 000, plus a personal award of £2000.
The panel of judges was so impressed by the overall quality of the entries in 2011 that it decided to award two 'Highly Commended' prizes (of a £4000 grant and a £1000 personal award) in addition to the main award. The winners received their prizes from Professor Paul Matthews OBE of GlaxoSmithKline at the NC3Rs Annual Science Review Meeting in London on 28 February.
The major prize winner was Dr Ludovic Vallier from the University of Cambridge, whose winning paper was published in the 'Journal of Clinical Investigation' in 2010. The paper described a method of producing liver cells that demonstrate inherited liver diseases from human skin cells. They reprogrammed the cells into human induced pluripotent stem cells, which they then used to generate liver cells mimicking a broad range of liver diseases.
These cells can replace animals for some types of early drug testing and help to predict adverse clinical reactions. Their use has already reduced the use of animals needed to produce liver cells in the laboratories that have adopted this technology.
One of the 'Highly Commended' awards went to Dr Anna Williams and colleagues from the MRC Centre for Regenerative Medicine at the University of Edinburgh for a paper published in the journal 'Experimental Neurology' in 2011. The paper describes a cell culture model of the mechanisms the brain uses to repair damage to the protective coating of nerve cells (the myelin sheath) caused by multiple sclerosis. The new model reduces the amount of mice needed to test a potential medicine from 40 to two.
Dr Stephen Pettitt at the Institute of Cancer Research and colleagues at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute received the second 'Highly Commended' award for a paper published in the journal 'Nature Methods'. They developed a new way of generating genetically modified mice that does not require using two different strains of mice and interbreeding them for several generations. The technique they described has the potential to reduce the number of mice used by hundreds per project.
The NC3RS are also the UK's largest funder of 3Rs research in universities and industry. In addition to the three 2011 3Rs Prizes, on 28 February they announced the five UK-based winners of their 'CRACK-IT Challenges' competition. The winners received either £1m or £0.5m grants to solve five specific 3Rs challenges facing the bioscience industry.
Applications for the 2012 3Rs Prize will be invited in September 2012.
Image credit: Wellcome Library, London.
