On the basis of his latest genetic studies, the Leipzig brain researcher Prof. Thomas Arendt, Head of the Department of Molecular and Cellular Mechanisms of the Neurodegeneration at the Paul Flechsig Institute for Brain Research has shown that Alzheimer's disease mainly affects brain regions that have developed late in human evolution. Nevertheless, Alzheimer's research is carried out on animals and has so far not led to any medical treatment of humans.

Researchers at the UZH Space Hub of the University of Zurich, led by Prof. Oliver Ullrich and Dr. Cora Thiel are presently cultivating human tissue from adult stem cells on the ISS space station. The researchers are using the weightlessness to produce better transplants as well as tissues, that could avoid animal testing.

The young company Nandatec from Lübeck is conducting tests on contact lenses without the use of rabbits. Therefore, human eye tissue is first printed on the 3D printer and then equipped with the contact lens.

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.