EURL ECVAM Review of non-animal models in biomedical research - Neurodegenerative Diseases

Neurodegenerative diseases pose major challenges for societies with rapidly aging populations. Existing therapies are limited, and only treat the symptoms. Research employing animal models in the understanding of the pathologies and to develop new drugs, failed for now to discover and approve an efficient treatment for these diseases. Therefore, JRC’s EU Reference Laboratory for alternatives to animal testing (EURL ECVAM) launched a study to collect current and emerging non-animal models used in the field of neurodegenerative diseases. The overall aim of the current project is to provide an inventory and scientific evaluation of innovative (human-based) non-animal models/approaches currently in use for basic and applied research in the field of neurodegenerative diseases, more specifically Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease. The resulting inventory covers 567 methods, ranging from biochemical and computational approaches to different types of cell cultures or ex vivo human material. The inventory aims to contribute to the increased adoption and acceptance of alternative methods in neurodegeneration research and related fields. The work has been conducted within the context of a scientific collaboration between the JRC (Directorate for Health, Consumers and Reference Materials, Chemicals Safety and Alternative Methods Unit) and Imec, KU Leuven, VIB and VITO who received financial support through a JRC (contract ref: JRC/IPR/2017/F.3/0050/OC).