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Immune cells kill damaged liver cells

Saturday, 07 March 2020 14:29

In cell culture with human liver cells, researchers at the Leibniz Research Centre for Working Environment and Human Factors (IfADo) have discovered that natural killer cells (NK cells, an immune cell type belonging to the lymphocytes) influence the progression of toxicological liver damage caused by drugs. These cells kill the affected liver cells directly.

The German Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture (BMEL) has announced the 39th Animal Welfare Research Prize. Researchers are invited to apply for research projects, that contribute to a
replacement or reduction of the number of animal experiments.

Early-career scientists are invited to apply for an award to attend the two-day meeting LIVe2020: Lung In Vitro Event for Innovative & Predictive Models, held in Nice, France, from 2 to 3 July 2020.

The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has taken a further step to ensure, in accordance with its new directive, to further reduce animal testing. Animal testing on birds will be reduced if enough other information is available to safely register outdoor pesticides.

The Center for Alternatives to Animal Testing (CAAT) at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, headed by Prof. Thomas Hartung, has conducted developmental neurotoxicological studies with the widely used serotonin reuptake inhibitor paroxetine, which has so far shown contradictory evidence of its effects on human brain development in animal experiments. For their investigations, the researchers used an organotypic brain model (BrainSpheres) derived from pluripotent human stem cells (iPSC).

With the aim of a joint initiative called BR50, Berlin's extra-university research institutions have joined forces to develop common strategies for research and to develop an exchange with politics and society.

In a research project of the Svendsen Laboratory at the Cedars-Sinai Board of Governors Regenerative Medicine Institute in Los Angeles, scientists have discovered that juvenile Parkinson's disease can be caused by genetic disruption of lysosomal cell cleaning. At the same time, they provided a new in vitro model for such Parkinson's diseases. The researchers have published their findings in Nature Medicine.

Berlin is considered the capital of start-ups. Also from the universities come numerous business start-ups. What economic importance do science-based Spin-offs in the Berlin Metropolitan Region? To illustrate this, eight Berlin-based and two universities from Potsdam are currently conducting a systematic survey on business start-up activities from science.

The European Partnership for Alternative Approaches to Animal Testing (EPAA) supports students and young scientists with outstanding work in the field of alternative approaches for attending a high-profile scientific event.

In this interactive course at a beginning Master’s level, the students will learn the best practices of advanced in vitro models, regulatory aspects, (stem) cell biology and technologies for testing medicine and/or substance safety testing as well as how the results can be validated, translated and implemented into human medicine.