EURL ECVAM Review of non-animal models in biomedical research - Immuno-oncology

It is widely recognised that immuno-oncology has revolutionised cancer treatment. Nevertheless there are still major hurdles in addressing several key medical questions. Among these, there is a lack of preclinical animal models capable of mimicking patient conditions and predicting responses to new therapies. Therefore, there is an ongoing need to develop more comprehensive, functional non-animal models. The European Commission’s Joint Research Centre (JRC) has carried out an extensive review of advanced non-animal models being used for basic and applied research into immuno-oncology. Researchers characterised and catalogued 542 models to make them more accessible for human relevant studies that avoid the use of animals. The review has been compiled by ALTER-N.A.M. consortium for EURL ECVAM (Joint Research Centre, Directorate for Health, Consumers and Reference Materials, Chemicals Safety and Alternative Methods Unit; contract number:JRC/IPR/2018/F.3/0035/OC)