On the crowdfunding website Kickstarter, the toxicologist Christa Royal from Atlanta, Georgia (USA), has announced the founding of a web platform for publishing negative research findings.

A research team led by Leif Schröder from the Leibniz Institute for Molecular Pharmacology (FMP) in Berlin and Christian Freund from the Freie Universität Berlin have replaced the detection principle used by magnetic resonance tomographs using a new process that makes it possible to render visible minute pathogenic details in tissue, such as cancer cells or atherosclerotic plaques.

Bioinformaticians at the Friedrich Schiller University in Jena led by Prof. Dr. Stefan Schuster have, in collaboration with Norwegian researchers, developed a comprehensive computer model for the metabolism of the amino acid tryptophan.

Dr. Robert Landsiedel, head of the work group for short-term toxicology in the experimental toxicology and ecology department at BASF SE, andhis team are this year's recipient of the Animal Welfare Research Award 2013. BASF develops alternatives to animal experiments and already conducts at least a third of its routine tests using animal-free methods, making the concern BASF a beacon amongst the major enterprises with regard to animal-free test methods.