The European Parliament has welcomed the European Commission's plan To strengthen Europe's fight against cancer, on Feb. 16, 2022, and stressed the importance of animal-free methods.

The state of Baden-Württemberg will continue its proven funding for research into alternative and supplementary methods to animal experiments in 2022.

For the current year, a total of 200,000 euros from the Ministry of Food, Rural Areas, and Consumer Protection is available to fund research into alternative and supplementary methods to animal experiments.

Applications can be submitted until 15 May 2022.

Source:
https://www.baden-wuerttemberg.de/de/service/presse/pressemitteilung/pid/land-foerdert-forschung-zur-vermeidung-von-tierversuchen/

A team of scientists led by Dr. Andreas Weltin, Dr. Jochen Kieninger, and Johannes Dornhof from the Institute of Microsystems Engineering (IMTEK) at the University of Freiburg has developed a system that, among other things, makes it possible to study the development of tumor cells outside the human body in a three-dimensional composite. The patients' tumor cells are cultivated in organ chips. Integrated microsensors can measure and control the culture conditions and metabolic rates of the cells at any time.

In the future, scientists based in Saarland should rely less on animal experiments for the development of new drugs and therapies but instead, use new methods. This was decided by the state parliament on Wednesday, February 16, at the request of the grand coalition.

Involving epilepsy patients with electrodes in the brain, researchers at the Universities of Bonn and Tübingen have discovered that individual neurons are responsible for addition or subtraction during math performance. It did not matter whether the arithmetic task had been posed in symbol or word form.

To better understand the interaction of the organ systems heart and lung and to find new therapeutic options, scientists at the Fraunhofer Institute for Toxicology and Experimental Medicine (ITEM) in Hannover are conducting research using human disease models.

Using a computer-assisted analysis technique,  scientists from Barcelona have found several natural products that can inhibit an important enzyme of the virus, called protease Mpro. The enzyme plays an important role in the replication of the virus in the host.

SARS-Cov-2 can invade the brain

Tuesday, 08 February 2022 11:57

Using brain capillary endothelial cells from induced pluripotent stem cells of deceased Covid-19 patients, a team of researchers from Hamburg, Kiel, Würzburg, Vienna, and the United States has shown that SARS-CoV-2 can enter the brain across the blood-brain barrier, leading to increased interferon signaling.

Gabriel Salg, Scientific Project Manager at the Department of Surgery at Heidelberg University Hospital (UKHD), along with his team, is working on an artificially created pancreas produced in a 3D printer. They want to be able to supply patients with a new "organ" in the future.

SARS-Cov-2: All good things come in threes

Thursday, 03 February 2022 14:16

Researchers at the Technical University of Munich have discovered that a total of three contacts to the spike protein as a viral antigen are necessary for neutralizing antibodies to be formed not only in sufficient quantity but also in high quality. The quality also helps against the omicron variant.