Towards animal-free cancer research

PA 292/09 Cutting edge research into better cancer treatment without the need for animal experiments has taken a major step forward at The University of Nottingham. Scientists at the School of Clinical Science's Division of Pre-Clinical Oncology have won a highly prestigious £400,000 grant from the National Centre for the Replacement, Refinement and Reduction of Animals in Research (NC3Rs). The award is for research to tackle the urgent need to develop anti-cancer drugs to treat solid tumours such as bowel and lung cancers, with a focus on a new and better system of testing which also has the potential to replace experiments in mice. The National Centre for the Replacement, Refinement and Reduction of Animals in Research (NC3Rs) was established by the UK government in 2004. It is an independent scientific organisation and the largest funder of 3Rs research in the UK. Nearly 400,000 mice were used in cancer research in both academia and industry in the UK in 2008. The mice are used to test and predict the clinical efficiency of anti-cancer therapies but these 'in vivo' models have not proved to be the most effective way of testing these drugs, with only 30 to 40 per cent of them providing useful results.