Lorena García-
Eliminate one quarter of animals killed in pre-clinical studies required to test the safety of drugs. This is the aim of the European project VICT3R, which starts this September and is led by the Universitat Pompeu Fabra.
To develop a new drug, testing in animals is mandatory before it can be tested for safety. A comparative study has to be done with four groups: three receive different doses of the potential drug, and a fourth group, the so-called control group, does not receive any dose. At the end of the process, all animals that have participated in the experimental study are killed, whether they have received the drug or not.
The aim of the programme is to replace individuals in this control group with virtual animals, explains Ferran Sanz, UPF professor and coordinator of the VICT3R project:
“The aim is to reduce the number of experimental animals by replacing them with synthetic virtual animals that are created through the exploitation of information accumulated over many years using data science techniques and artificial intelligence methods”
Virtual animals created with artificial intelligence methods
The project also involves public research centres such as the Barcelona Supercomputering Center, which will collaborate in the development of artificial intelligence models.
Davide Cirillo, head of artificial intelligence at the Barcelona Supercomputering Center, explains that instead of sacrificing control animals, what is being done is to create digital, virtual and artificial animals:
“It will be mainly mice, dogs and primates, which are the most used in experiments. And the most interesting is that you can create virtual animals ad hoc. If we need to experiment with specific control animals, artificial intelligence models will allow us to create these animals.”
And where will come from the millions and millions of data that will be needed to create these “artificial” animals? Manuel Pastor, a professor at the UPF and coordinator of artificial intelligence techniques application, says that “the pharmaceutical industry has been standardizing all data generated by animal experiments for decades”.
These data, explains Pastor, are part of the files sent to public regulatory agencies that have to approve the marketing of a drug ensuring it is effective and safe for the population.
The project involves 19 large pharmaceutical companies led by Germany’s Bayer, which will share data accumulated over the years in experimental drug studies.
Changing protocols without compromising the safety of new drugs
VICT3R will last for three and a half years. At the moment, its promoters are seeking a change in protocols that would allow the elimination of one-quarter of the animals currently used in new drug trials.
Sanz says the target is “very ambitious” and that they want the drug regulatory agencies to authorize this removal of animals from control groups. ” We want real application in the development of new medicines without losing safety or scientific rigor,” says the project coordinator.
Manuel Pastor explains that the challenge is not only to reduce the number of animals, but “it is to convince regulators that the same levels of protection can be achieved for the population without using real animals in control groups”.
VICT3R: Science and ethics at the Hand
The name given to the project refers to the first of three objectives (reducing, refining and replacing) that science has been pursuing for years: advance scientific knowledge but using as few animals as possible and causing them as little suffering as possible.
Olga Valverde, a UPF teacher, says that researchers like her who often work with animals try to reduce the amount:
“We have a real compromise between the 3 erres, but we face no alternative to that. In the study of certain pathologies and possible tractaments, with neurological malalities or the study of ageing, the end of a useful animal experiment to advance the results.”
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