Science Advancement and Outreach

We're hiring! Science Advancement and Outreach is seeking a candidate with strong science, health, or public policy experience to help us promote the implementation and funding of modern, animal-free research methods to replace experiments on animals in the U.S. More details are available at the link below. Apply there or send your resume to [email protected].  Paylocity link: https://lnkd.in/gY3Hr5ec LinkedIn job posting: https://lnkd.in/e8Pw47GG    #policy #sciencepolicy #scipol #publicpolicy #hiring #scipoljobs 

In a new study, researchers at the Sanford Consortium for Regenerative Medicine used #hiPSC-derived, multi-cell lung #organoids to study #COVID19, including the virus' ability to infect cells and how it enters them, human lung immune response, innate immunity, and more. Published in PNAS:  https://lnkd.in/gKVa3jqa Congratulations to the authors: Sandra Leibel; Rachael McVicar, PhD; Rabi Murad; Elizabeth M Kwong; Alex C.; Asuka Alvarado; Bethany A. Grimmig; Ruslan Nuryyev; Randee Young; Jamie Casey Lee; Weiqi Peng; Yanfang P. Zhu; Eric Griffis; Brian James; Suzie Alarcón, CGMBS, MB(ASCP)CM; Atul Malhotra; Linden J. Gearing; Paul Hertzog; Cheska Marie Galapate; Koen M.O. Galenkamp, PhD; Cosimo Commisso; Davey Smith, MD, MAS, FACP, FIDSA; Xin Sun; Aaron F. Carlin; Richard L. Sidman; Ben Croker; and Evan Snyder. Also of: UC San Diego School of Medicine; Sanford Burnham Prebys; Monash Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences; La Jolla Institute for Immunology; Hudson Institute of Medical Research; Monash University; and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. Also check out this press release in EurekAlert!: https://lnkd.in/eedWhttT #humanrelevantresearch #nonanimalmethods #NAMs #pulmonology #SARSCoV2 #virology #invitro #ipsc #publichealth

Attention medical students! To ensure that your future medical residency program doesn’t use animals in any way, you can ask these three questions during your interview as a prospective student. By advocating for animal-free, human-relevant training methods, you can help ensure you receive a quality medical education and encourage schools who aren't already using non-animal methods to make the switch.   https://lnkd.in/e4XruZYj #medicalstudent #residencyinterviews #match2026 #medicalresidency #eras #medtwitter 

On July 29-30, the National Institute on Aging (NIA) is hosting a workshop on 3D #invitro tissue systems for #aging research.   https://lnkd.in/egmnpHf4 Chaired by Jim McGrath, with keynote by Nathan LeBrasseur and talks by Francesca Duncan, Zev Gartner, Jerome Mertens, Lorenz Studer, Claudia Loebel, Hang Lin, George Truskey, Joseph C. Wu, Margaret Ochocinska, Alexey V. Terskikh, Dr. Christiane Hartmann, Irina Conboy, Andreas Stahl, Young Charles Jang, Siobhan Malany, Golnaz Karoubi, and Deok-Ho Kim. #agingresearch #workshop #humanrelevantresearch #NAMs #nonanimalmethods

Read the first study of chronic #cardiac contractility (CCM) modulation in a #3Dmodel using human #iPSCs and fibroblasts by Ksenia Blinova, Maura Casciola, PhD, Jourdan Ewoldt et al published in J Card Electrophysiology (Wiley). https://lnkd.in/d-z_W7Bm    The model allowed for the evaluation of physiological and molecular effects of medical devices in human cardiac tissues for 2 days to “elucidate the chronic CCM effects, with key physiological and molecular features altered in a similar fashion as patients.” With this study, the team established a robust, human-relevant tool to assess the effects of chronic, discontinuous CCM on 3D human engineered cardiac tissues for use in mechanistic research, device development, and decision-making.

🧫 New customizable animal-free #scaffold for #microfluidics! Bio-Spun™ from @BioSurfaces, LLC is a versatile tool for creating lifelike tissue models, from organs-on-chips to disease modeling. https://lnkd.in/eNkkGcEn #DrugTesting #NAMs #3Dcellculture

💡 Improving Methods Reporting 🧪 in the Life Sciences - a guest post by Marcel LaFlamme in The Scholarly Kitchen. #ResearchIntegrity #ScientificReporting #OpenScience https://lnkd.in/dqEuYi6Z "In order to reuse the research data that publishers are increasingly expecting authors to share, readers need context on how these data were generated in the first place." It’s also about inclusion and equity. “[B]etter reporting can make tacit knowledge explicit and cut down on research waste, reducing time and resources spent—and, in the case of in vivo research, animal lives taken—to reinvent the wheel.” Last year's European Commission report by Sofia Batista Leite, Matthew Brooke, Annamaria Carusi, Andy Collings, Pierre Deceuninck, Jean-François DECHAMP, Bronwen Dekker, Elisa De Ranieri, Emma Ganley, GASTALDELLO Annalisa, Fanglian He, Marcel LaFlamme, Ingrid Langezaal, James Morris, David Pamies, Monica Piergiovanni, Bernd Pulverer, David Sadler, Caroline Shamu, Vivian Siegel, and Tracey Weissgerber, outlined recommendations "on capturing clear, accurate, methodological detail, e.g. with reusable step-by-step protocols." https://lnkd.in/g864PaAH #PROMaP advocates "the premise that scientific journals should strive to publish articles that are fully reproducible and reusable." A 2016 Nature Magazine survey by Monya Baker "sheds light on the ‘crisis’ rocking research." https://lnkd.in/e-z9dicQ “More than 70% of researchers have tried and failed to reproduce another scientist's experiments, and more than half have failed to reproduce their own experiments. Those are some of the telling figures that emerged from Nature's survey of 1,576 researchers who took a brief online questionnaire on reproducibility in research.” "Methods sections of life science articles are often closely tied to the use of materials such as antibodies, cell lines, model organisms, and plasmids." Authors should transparently present the sequence of operations and the tools they used. We at Science Advancement and Outreach also advocate for including detailed information on animal housing conditions. It's well established that variations in housing conditions influence animals’ physiology and behavior and subsequently affect the data obtained. https://lnkd.in/gyk24uKH "As with other issues affecting the integrity and utility of the scholarly record, publishers cannot improve methods reporting alone." - Marcel LaFlamme. PIs, funders, journals, & institutions have work to do. “Together, we can bring about lasting shifts in research culture" 🔚 

Chimps share humans' 'snappy' conversational style. In this new article, Victoria Gill via BBC discusses field research with Drs. Cat Hobaiter and Gal Badihi, primatologists from University of St Andrews. #AnimalCognition #AnimalCommunication #Science https://lnkd.in/gZecAWAm This study published in Current Biology examined "thousands of instances of wild chimpanzees communicating with each other, Prof Hobaiter and her colleagues were able to time the animals' conversations."  https://lnkd.in/gZnvEfCK Authors Gal Badihi, Kirsty Graham, Charlotte Grund, Alexandra Safryghin, Adrian Soldati, Ed Donnella, Hashimoto Chie, Joseph Mine, Alex Piel, Fiona Stewart, Katie Slocombe, Claudia Wilke, Simon Townsend, Klaus Zuberbühler, Chiara Zulberti, and Cat Hobaiter, observed five wild chimp communities of Uganda and Tanzania.

In Scientific Reports, University of Pécs researchers explore incorporating AI with VR to assist in laparoscopic surgical training, once again advancing medical training from animal models to more advanced, humane, and versatile models. Previously, laparoscopic training relied heavily on animals. VR can teach both basic & advanced skills in multiple medical disciplines. The study found that "immersive VR simulators and AI-based assessment algorithms could improve the quality of simulation-based medical education, support independent learning curves, and provide objective, standardizable, and repeatable assessment methods." VR simulation models are currently capable of replacing the use of animals in laparoscopic training. Each year, the medical simulation research community finds innovative ways to improve the technology and, by extension, medical training. Congrats on the recent publication, Peter Zoltan Bogar, Mark Virag, Matyas Bene, Peter Hardi, András Matúz, Schlégl Ádám, Tibor Schlegl, Luca Toth, Ferenc Molnar, Balint Nagy, Szilard Rendeki, Dr. Berner-Juhos Krisztina, Andrea Ferencz Ferencz, Krisztina Fischer & Peter Maroti. https://lnkd.in/gS-3nUzX

The Pistoia Alliance has launched a new #NAMs Community. "...non-animal models hold huge potential for transforming the clinical development landscape, and collaboration is critical to industrywide adoption," says Alto Predict CSO Ellen Berg. https://lnkd.in/eKrZcNi3  A survey recently conducted by the Pistoia Alliance and covered by Drug Discovery World revealed that 77% of R&D professionals were not using NAMs and only 23% were ‘very familiar’ with any kind of animal model alternative. https://lnkd.in/erVNvnBB