Glial Research Group win prize for excellence in 3RS

Published: 12 August 2019

An Institute of Infection, Immunology, and Inflammation research group has been selected for an award by the National Centre for the Replacement, Refinement, & Reduction of Animals in Research.

An Institute of Infection, Immunology, and Inflammation (iii) research group has been selected for an award by the National Centre for the Replacement, Refinement, & Reduction of Animals in Research (NC3Rs).

NC3Rs, which was developed over 50 years ago to provide a framework for performing more humane research, holds an annual prizegiving to recognise excellence in the replacement, reduction or refinement of the use of animals.

We are delighted to report that the Institute's Glial Cell Biology Research Group have been voted as the winner of the 2019 researcher prize by the AWERB panel.

The group's abstract, 'The use of cultures to study the repair of the central nervous system' by Professor Susan Barnett, Dr Susan Lindsay, and Mr George McCanney, will now be the subject of a presentation at the symposium on 18 September.

Professor Barnett said: "We were proud to win this award. The 3Rs is an important aspect of animal research, especially in neuroscience where procedures in animal models are often graded severe.

"We can examine in vitro culture systems that fulfil 3R principles, whilst still examining the complexity of neural cell interactions.

"Our work has shown that the normal development of myelinated fibres and their relevance to diseases of the central nervous system, such as spinal cord injury and multiple sclerosis, can be studied in this way.

"Our work and others in the Neuroimmunology groups within iii are continuing to develop use of these cultures for other aspects of CNS damage."


First published: 12 August 2019