European animal protection organizations have collected 1.4 million online signatures for the European Citizens' Initiative to phase out animal experiments. Member of the German Parliament, Luiza Licina Bode, the animal welfare representative of the Social Democrats' parliamentary group in the Parliament as well as of the Parliament's Committee on Food and Agriculture, calls for a long-term commitment beyond the agreement in the coalition treaty.

A group of international companies developing human-on-a-chip technologies has reached out to key members of the U.S. Congress, urging them to support the so-called FDA Modernization Act as part of a legislative package.

Two research teams from Freiburg will receive funding of a total of 200,000 euros this year for their research into methods that do not involve animal experiments. Their planned models are suitable for at least reducing animal experiments in certain areas.

Scientists at Boston Children's Hospital have developed a new approach to understanding heart diseases. They examined heart muscle cells from patients of all ages and found that mutations accumulate in the cells over time with a loss of ability to eliminate them over a lifetime.