In the news
10 Mar 2010
27 March 2009
Dr Hadwen Trust research wins non-animal replacement prize
Dr Hadwen Trust-funded researchers studying breast cancer have this week won a prestigious non-animal replacement prize at an event held at the House of Lords.
Dr Deborah Holliday, now based at the Department of Pathology and Tumour Biology, Leeds Institute of Molecular Medicine, and colleagues from Queen Mary’s, University of London, have constructed a 3-dimensional model of human breast cancer in the test tube. The model uses human cells from cancerous and healthy breast tissue donated by volunteers and is set to help replace experiments using up to 400 mice per test and typically involving implanting tumours, abdominal drug injections and serial ‘harvesting’ of tumours.
The event was hosted by the National Centre for the Replacement, Refinement and Reduction of Animals in Research1 (NC3Rs) as part of its celebrations to mark the 50th anniversary of Russell and Burch’s2 concept of replacement, reduction and refinement of animal experiments (3Rs). The research, which was published in Breast Cancer Research journal3 was funded by the Dr Hadwen Trust for Humane Research as part of our programme to pioneer new techniques to replace animals in medical experiments.
Deborah displayed a poster detailing this work at the event where a judging panel selected the best poster from each of the 3Rs. Deborah’s won the replacement section, scooping a prize of £3,000. The posters were judged on their impact on the 3Rs, quality of the science and the researchers’ ability to communicate to a lay audience.
Dr Holliday says: ”This is an exciting development in both breast cancer research and the replacement of animals so I am thrilled at the award . Understanding how individual cell populations contribute to cancer progression is essential in increasing our understanding of breast cancer and identifying new targets for therapy. Being able to model this in a complex human 3-D culture model provides us with a valuable tool to investigate this without the use of animal experiments.”
Notes
1 The NC3Rs was established in 2004 by the government www.nc3rs.org.uk.
2 W.M.S. Russell and R.L. Burch (1959) The Principles of Humane Experimental Technique. London, UK: Methuen
3 Novel multicellular organotypic models of normal and malignant breast: tools for dissecting the role of the microenvironment in breast cancer progression Deborah L Holliday, Kellie T Brouilette, Anja Markert, Linda A Gordon, J Louise Jones. Breast Cancer Research 2009, 11:R3.
4 A research overview of this project can be found on our ScienceRoom website.
