The U.S. congress FDA Modernization Act 2.0 adoption caused a stir globally by not requiring anymore animal testing for developing drugs. This is big step forward and marks the beginning of the transition towards modern, animal-free toxicity testing process.
The conventional drug development system is lengthy, costly, and ineffective as it relies on animal research that fails to predict human reactions to new drugs. This is reflected by high failure rates – consistently over 92% of new drugs, which appeared safe and effective in animal tests, fail in human clinical trials.
For early career scientists, the meeting was a great opportunity to learn more about what is being done with organs-on-a-chip, and to discuss how it can be improved to pave the way for more reliable and humane approaches in biomedical research and toxicology.
Whenever Professor Don Ingber of the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering gives his take on disease modelling, drug development and personalised medicine, you can be sure biomedical scientists, pharmaceutic industry and clinicians tune in.
The procedure – known as xenotransplantation – was heralded in headlines around the world as the success story of the century, with many including patients and their relatives, hoping it marked a new beginning for health care. Â
Dr Adrian Biddle is a group leader and senior lecturer in animal replacement science within the Centre for Cell Biology and Cutaneous Research at the Blizard Institute, Queen’s Medical University London.
His research interest is cancer stem cells in oral cancer and the importance of using human disease models for studies of tumour spread and therapeutic resistance.
© 2026 Animal Free Research UK. Animal Free Research UK is a registered charity in England and Wales (No. 1146896) and Scotland (No. SC045327) and a company limited by guarantee in England and Wales (No. 08015625). Registered Office: 27 Old Gloucester Street, London, WC1N 3AX
