Alternative and in vitro models in toxicology

The use of laboratory animals is becoming less and less accepted by society

Juliette Legler
Professor of Toxicology

How great would it be if we could assess the safety of chemicals and pharmaceuticals without the use of laboratory animals? To be able to test the safety of chemicals solely based on human physiology and biology, including such vulnerable groups as infants, the elderly or the sick?

Utrecht University plays a leading role in the Netherlands concerning the use of alternatives to laboratory animals. According to Juliette Legler, Professor of Toxicology, the current system of assessing the safety of chemicals and pharmaceuticals based on animal testing is outdated: "It is slow and leaves little room for innovation. Developments in biotechnology are proceeding very rapidly, and our current system of safety assessment is unnecessarily slowing us down if we don’t keep up with the innovations."

Utrecht researchers show that the transition to innovative and societally relevant science and policy is possible without animal testing.

Research projects

  • GOLIATH

    GOLIATH focusses on one of the most urgent regulatory needs in the field of endocrine disrupting chemicals, namely the lack of methods for testing EDCs that disrupt metabolism – chemicals collectively referred to as ‘metabolism disrupting chemicals’ (MDCs).

    Duration: 2019 - 2023
    IRAS Principal investigator: Juliette Legler
    IRAS Project Member: Roel Vermeulen 
    Project Manager: Jorke Kamstra
    Funded by: European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 825489

     

  • ENDpoiNTs

    The European project ENDpoiNTs will develop new testing and screening methods to identify endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs) that induce human developmental  neurotoxicity (DNT).

    Duration: 2019 - 2024
    Contact: Remco Westerink
    Funded by: European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No. 825759

  • TUBE

    Within TUBE (Effects of traffic-derived nanoparticles on lung and brain function) researchers will study effects of transport-derived ultrafine- or nanoparticles using in vitro models for the lung using Air-Liquid Interface (ALI) culture methods to mimic realistic human exposure.

    Duration: May 2019 - April 2023
    Contact: Remco Westerink
    Funded by: European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 814978.

  • Virtual Human Platform for Safety Assessment

    A consortium of researchers from Dutch institutes are developing a Virtual Human Platform (VHP) to assess the safety of chemicals and medicines without the use of laboratory animals. The VHP incorporates human-relevant scenarios to discriminate vulnerable groups, life course exposure, gender and age.

    Read a news item about the project. 

    Duration: 2021 – 2026
    IRAS Principal Investigator: Juliette Legler
    Contact: Esmeralda Krop
    Funded by: Dutch Research Agenda; Research on Routes by Consortia (NWA-ORC)

  • AFARA

    Animal-Free Assays for endocrine disruption – from science to Regulatory Acceptance

    Researchers from UU and RIVM study challenges and opportunities within existing legal and regulatory frameworks for the use of animal-free models for identification of endocrine disrupting chemicals. This is done by combining expertise from natural sciences, social sciences and humanities with key public sector expertise.  

    Duration: 2023 – 2027
    IRAS Principal Investigator: Juliette Legler
    Utrecht University Project member: Jarno Hoekman
    Contact: Esmeralda Krop
    Funded by: Dutch Research Council (NWO)

  • ALTERNATIVE

    environmentAL Toxicity chEmical mixtuRes through aN innovative platform based on aged cardiac tissue model

    Horizon 2020 research project ALTERNATIVE develops an innovative platform and an integrated approach for testing and assessment of the potential of chemicals to induce cardiotoxicity. The novel approach will strengthen the capacity of regulators and industry to prevent cardiotoxic coexposures to industrial chemicals and pharmaceuticals in an effective way.

    Duration: 2021 - 2024
    IRAS Project Member:  Prof. Ronette Gehring
    Funded by: EU Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Action (RIA) 

  • TK Plate 2.0

    An Open source platform integrating physiologically-based kinetic and physiologically-based kinetic-dynamic models and machine learning models for risk assessment of single and multiple chemicals and biological stressors in animal species (TKplate 2.0)

    TK Plate 2.0 is an extension of TK-Plate, an EFSA open-source platform that integrates physiologically-based kinetic (PBK), physiologically-based kinetic dynamic (PBKD), toxicokinetic-toxicodynamic (TK-TD) and dynamic energy budget (DEB) models for humans and food-producing animals. It provides a user-friendly graphical interface through which these models can be applied for the risk assessment of pesticides, food additives, feed additives and contaminants. 

    Duration: 2022 - 2025
    IRAS Principle Investigator: Prof. Ronette Gehring
    Funded by: European Union