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Monday, 19 September 2016 21:28

Baden-Württemberg supports three projects to replace animal experiments Featured

As the only state Baden-Württemberg annually supports the development of alternatives to animal experiments with 400,000 euros. In this round, three scientists are promoted for their development of in vitro methods and another project will be financed to improve welfare conditions of mice.

The postdoctoral fellow Dr. José Hurst from the Department of Ophthalmology in Tübingen is going to establish a retinal ganglion cell line in order to examine eye diseases such as glaucoma or vascular occlusion of the retina (retinal ischemia). With the results, it should be possible to reduce animal testing.

Prof. Marcel Leist, professor of the Doerenkamp-Zbinden chair of In Vitro Toxicology and Biomedicine at the University of Konstanz is developing an in vitro model of human nerve cells (astrocytes) that can be used for basic research of neurodegenerative diseases but also be for applied medical research and drug development.

Dr. Heike Niessner and Dr. Tobias Sinnberg from Department of Dermatological Oncology in Tübingen will also get financial support. they will investigate treatment options of the malignant melanoma (skin cancer). For this purpose they optimize an in vitro model consisting of melanoma slice cultures, with which they can replace the use of mice during preclinical characterization of therapeutic applications. Due to the human-specific tissue material, they are also able to get insights for individualized tumor therapies.

Read more here:
http://mlr.baden-wuerttemberg.de/de/unser-service/presse-und-oeffentlichkeitsarbeit/pressemitteilung/pid/minister-hauk-mdl-zum-wohl-der-tiere-muessen-stetig-verfahren-entwickelt-werden-um-tierversuche/