Instead of clear rules for phasing out animal experiments in accordance with the reduction strategy that has been drawn up, the current coalition government is now planning a separate law that would exclude animals in experiments from the Animal Welfare Act. This would have serious consequences for their protection.

On Tuesday, April 22, the Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture's (BMEL) newly conceived Animal Welfare Research Prize was awarded to two winners. This year's winners are the organoid researcher and molecular geneticist at the University of Utrecht, Prof. Dr. Hans Clevers, and the well-known refinement researcher Prof. Dr. Adrian Smith - known for the norecopa platform and the arrive guidelines for improving the planning of animal experiments. A national prize for young scientists for methods and procedures to replace or reduce animal experiments was not awarded - there were too few applications.

According to the Washington Times, Lee Zeldin, head of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), plans to revive a ban on animal testing at the Environmental Protection Agency.

Using a genome-wide association study (GWAS) on osteoarthritis, an international research team led by Prof. Dr. Eleftheria Zeggini, Director of the Institute of Translational Genomics at the Helmholtz Zentrum München, has identified hundreds of new drug targets. The results also revealed possibilities for repurposing existing therapies.