This year's "Replacement of the Year" issue examines the current development and acceptance of a testing strategy to replace rodents in tests for brain development disorders (developmental neurotoxicity tests). Scientists have been working for some time with regulatory authorities such as the European Food and Safety Agency (EFSA) on a cost-effective testing strategy based on a reliable in vitro test battery to identify DNT hazards to reduce exposure to these chemicals. For this purpose, the complex processes of brain development are to be broken down into individual spatially and temporally separate development steps. For each step, individual tests are to be developed.

Between 9 September and 6 December of this year, applicants may apply or be nominated for the LUSH Prize 2020. The prize is worth a total of 350,000 British Pound and honours researchers and individuals in the five categories Science, Young Scientists, Training, Public Relations and Lobbying.  

Scientists from the University of Magdeburg together with researchers from Dresden, Jena, Stuttgart and Estonia are working on a project to replace legally prescribed animal experiments in European hydropower plants by robotic fish. With this kind of artificial fish they want to gain information about flow conditions and expected harm to real fish in European river power plants.

With help of the 3D printer, American researchers from the Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh have created a left heart chamber consisting of collagen and myocardial cells, which began to beat on its own within a few days. The scientists have described their development in the magazine "Science".