The National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced it is embracing a new program aimed at expanding innovative, human-based science to decrease the use of animals in research.
According to the NIH, although traditional animal models remain essential to advancing scientific knowledge, technologies can offer strengths that can expand researchers’ toolbox to answer difficult or unanswerable biomedical questions.
New and emerging technologies allow researchers to examine health and disease utilizing human information, providing a different avenue to yield replicable, translatable and logical results, alone or in combination with animal models, the organization said.
The technologies include organoids, tissue chips and other in vitro systems that help scientists model human disease, human variability and patient-specific characteristics; computational models that replicate complex biological human systems, disease pathways and drug interactions; and real-world data that allows for examining health outcomes in humans at community and population levels.
The NIH said it will establish the Office of Research Innovation, Validation and Application (ORIVA) within the Director’s Office, which will organize NIH-wide attempts to develop, authenticate and “scale the use of non-animal approaches across the agency’s biomedical research portfolio and serve as a hub for interagency coordination and regulatory translation for public health protection.”
Additionally, ORIVA will increase funding and training in non-animal testing and awareness of its value in translational success.
“For decades, our biomedical research system has relied heavily on animal models. With this initiative, NIH is ushering in a new era of innovation,” NIH Director Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, said in a statement.
“By integrating advances in data science and technology with our growing understanding of human biology, we can fundamentally reimagine the way research is conducted, from clinical development to real-world application. This human-based approach will accelerate innovation, improve healthcare outcomes and deliver life-changing treatments. It marks a critical leap forward for science, public trust and patient care.”
THE LARGER TREND
The NIH’s support of research with animals has been vital for advancing prevention, early detection and treatment of numerous diseases.
According to the NIH, shared characteristics to laboratory animals aid researchers in understanding key biological and physiological processes in humans.
Animal research has helped in the development of penicillin, insulin, blood transfusions and a vaccine for polio, as well as treatments for breast cancer, blood pressure and epilepsy.
The NIH has long adopted technology to enhance research.
In 2024, researchers at the National Cancer Institute (NCI), part of the NIH, developed an artificial intelligence tool that predicts whether a patient will respond to cancer-treatment drugs using individual tumor cells, according to a study published in Nature Cancer.
Traditional approaches to drug-patient matching focused on bulk sequencing of tumor DNA and RNA. The AI approach, PERCEPTION, takes advantage of single-cell RNA sequencing and provides better-resolution data to fine-tune predicted drug responses.
PERCEPTION showed promise in two clinical trials for myeloma and breast cancer. The study created a numerical value for the effectiveness of clinical trial drug combinations. It ranked them best on individual tumor cell responses to the treatments, permitting researchers to decide the most effective treatment for a specific patient.
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