Last week, we had the pleasure to participate in the conference about Alternatives to Animal Experimentation which was held last week in Biocitech park, Romainville, France. It was organized by Adebiotech think tank, and gathered researchers from private companies and academia, and also people from organizations like FC3R and PETA Science Consortium International, for interesting and fruitful discussions between the different stakeholders.
It was all about alternative technologies and models (NAMs) to reduce the use of laboratory animals for testing, with different sessions dealing with innovations, pharmaceutical industry applications, nutrition area and the point of view from the chemical industry, medical devices and cosmetic fields on the topic.
Our project director Elodie was pleased to present our poster entitled “Bridging the gap between in vitro & in vivo: 3D cell culture considering the extracellular matrix“ there, which attracted the attention from the audience. The results show, with the example of in vitro cancer models, that BIOMIMESYS® can help to reproduce the matricial microenvironment of tissues in a relevant way, allowing to better model their functions in health and disease, and better predict in vivo responses. This was illustrated by results of collaborations with ONCOLille Institute, with the works of Zoulika Kherrouche (Institut Pasteur de Lille) Marie Fernandes, Julien Cicero, Robert-Alain-Toillon). To download it in high quality version, please refer to this webpage:
The conference was held in a relaxed atmosphere. In particular we enjoyed the preliminary workshops, the talks by different representatives of the pharmaceutical industry (with different point of views and concrete examples of the NAMs they use) and the final roundtable, bringing together various actors of the industry. Great to hear their insightful comments, from which we will remember that: there is a need to have all actors – including regulatory agencies – talking together in a holistic approach to move forward and use less and less animals, while maintaining the safety of ingredients, actives, chemical compounds and of course, drugs that will reach the market. In this frame, all NAMs are welcome and there is no single one at the moment: in vitro tissues and organoids, organs-on-a-chip, in silico models, etc. In this frame, thanks to Anthony Treizebre for his refreshing talk about OoCs!
Special thanks to the organizers, in particular Sylvio Bengio and Patricia Tasset, to the sponsors and to all speakers and participants for their interest and involvement in the reduction of animal testing. Nice to have met Simon Tendil from Molecular Devices, our long-lasting imaging partner!
Thanks to have allowed Elodie to present orally her poster during the dedicated session! For people with whom she could not talk because time was short, please feel free to contact her about BIOMIMESYS and our services here, or to download a high resolution copy of the poster here.
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