Non-animal motor neuron disease research

Genetically modified rodents are commonly used for basic research and drug development for motor neuron disease. Effective treatments are desperately needed for this devastating disorder, but there are increasingly loud noises from the research community that GM rodent research is not delivering on its earlier promises.

A number of non-animal techniques such as human imaging and genetic studies are being applied in motor neuron disease research, with the advantage of better relevance to patients and therefore strong hopes for translation into the clinic.

Read our review of non-animal techniques for motor neuron disease research here

Immune testing in vitro

One perceived obstacle to replacing animals that we at the Dr Hadwen Trust hear time and again is "you can't study whole physiological systems without using animals". We don't agree; the species that medical researchers ideally want to study is the human one, so think neuroimaging, iontophoresis, ultrasound, stable isotope methods, microdosing, microdialysis, and genetic and other analyses of tissue samples.

In addition, a promising, new, highly advanced method of studying immune reactions in vitro has been designed by a company in the USA. It looks set to enable early human-based testing of immunopharmaceuticals and vaccines, and eventually may contribute to autoimmune disease research. The company is currently in talks with the US Food and Drug Administration, seeking acceptance for the cell-based model. We hope that one day this kind of technology will be available internationally.

Read more about this futuristic replacement here

An interview with Professor Robert Miller

Studying a microorganism that doesn't infect humans and doing it by causing animal suffering is a lose-lose situation by anyone's standards. But that's what's been happening with pneumonia research using Pneumocystis. The organism studied in animals is not human Pneumocystis. It is either Pneumocystis carinii (in the rat model) or Pneumocystis murina (in the mouse model), and involves immune suppression followed by the animals inhaling the fungus for it to multiply in their lungs.

So an in vitro culture method to enable scientists to study human Pneumocystis jirovecii is desperately needed. The Dr Hadwen Trust is currently funding Professor Miller and Dr Huggett at University College London as they attempt to find such a method, which will also allow study of the development of novel antimicrobial agents.

Fibre-optics in asthma research could replace animals

Until recently, lung tissue from asthmatic patients was rarely available because the techniques to obtain the cells simply had not been established. Now a new Dr Hadwen Trust-funded project is using fibre-optic endobronchoscopy with human volunteers and it could negate the need for many animal studies in asthma research. Researchers at King's College London are using the new application of this existing technology to take biopsies of airway smooth muscle cells from asthma patients and healthy volunteers, which they will then study using the latest imaging and genetic techniques.

Guinea pigs, mice, rats and rabbits are routinely used in asthma research, but none of these species naturally suffer from asthma. The procedures therefore involve distressing lung sensitization and repeated abdominal injections to induce inflamed airways and allergic shortness of breath.

These artificially induced symptoms in animals are temporary and there are marked species differences in the major intracellular signalling pathways: murine airways lack a developed bronchial circulation, and there are significant variations in potassium channel currents expressed by human airway smooth muscle cells compared with those from rabbits or rats. This makes development of a human-based research approach all the more vital.