Queen Mary academics provide expert comment on new Government strategy 

Professor Hazel Screen being interviewed by the BBC

This new strategy outlines the Government's vision of eliminating the use of animals in research and development in all but exceptional circumstances, and sets out a plan to achieve this by replacing animals with alternative methods wherever possible.

To explain more about this strategy, what these alternatives are and how they work, BBC’s Pallab Ghosh spoke to Queen Mary academics Professor Hazel Screen, who co-directs the Queen Mary’s Centre for Preventative in vitro Models (CPM) with her colleague Professor Martin Knight, and Professor Fran Balkwill, Deputy Lead at the University’s Centre for Tumour Microenvironment. 

Professor Screen spoke to Pallab about the world-leading research work she and her colleagues are carrying out at Queen Mary’s CPM. This centre, which has state-of-the-art facilities including organ-on-a-chip technology, aims to develop the next generation of predictive in vitro models that can be used to reduce the use of animals in research.  

Researchers in the CPM are developing a wide range of approaches to study conditions such as arthritis, inflammation, cancer and cardiovascular disease. By working with pharmaceutical companies and other end users, researchers aim to maximise the adoption of these alternative methods in order to drive human-relevant science and accelerate the development of better medicines. 

Professor Balkwill spoke to Pallab about her research into complex multi-cellular models of ovarian cancer, which include the tumour microenvironment. These models, often referred to as organoids, provide a 3D multi-cellular model of ovarian cancer which allows Professor Balkwill and her team to understand things like cell-to-cell communication in the tumour microenvironment, test new biological therapies and study sensitivity and resistance to T cell killing.

As well as delivering world leading research developing and using these alternative methods, Queen Mary is also pioneering in the UK and globally when it comes to educating and training the researchers in this field. They are doing this via their EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training in next generation organ-on-a-chip technologies, which has welcomed its first cohort of PhD students, and the world’s first Master’s Degree Programme for organ-on-a-chip technology, which has recently opened to applications. 

Through these education programmes, world leading research and industry engagement, Queen Mary is ideally placed to help achieve the Government’s aim of reducing the use of animals in science.