 |
|
 |
| Mahatma Gandhi-Doerenkamp Center founded in India |
 Between the Bharathidasan University in Tiruchirappalli/Tamil Nadu/India and the Doerenkamp-Zbinden Foundation in Kuesnacht ZH/Switzerland a Memorandum of Understanding was signed on 15th July 2009.
A "Mahatma-Gandhi-Doerenkamp Center for alternatives to the use of animals in life science education" was founded. A Gandhi-Gruber-Doerenkamp Chair will be established. The inauguration will be on 2nd October 2009, at the 140th birthsday of Mahatma Gandhi.
The Center is a joint venture between the Bharathidasan University, the Doerenkamp-Zbinden Foundation and People for Animals, Chennai. |
| |
Mahatma Gandhi-Doerenkamp Center for alternatives to animal use in life science education and in vitro toxicology
A Mahatma Gandhi-Doerenkamp Center for alternatives to animal use in life science education and in vitro toxicology was established as a national center for alternatives in India at Bharathidasan University, Tiruchirappalli, Tamil Nadu. The Bharathidasan University is a renowned university under the University Grants Commission of the Government of India. The mandate of the Center is to synergise the Gandhian philosophy of “Ahimsa” or “Non-Violence” with the teaching/research of life sciences. The Center was established with the generous financial support of the Doerenkamp-Zbinden Foundation, Switzerland, and includes the establishment of a “Gandhi-Gruber-Doerenkamp Chair” for alternatives in biomedical education. The Center was established in the belief that promoting humane science is an imperative scientific, legal, psycho-social, ecological and economic need. The Center will strive to create a strong positive presence of alternatives to the use of animals in India, thereby promoting quality and excellence in life science education, research and testing by way of continuous training programmes, an alternatives knowledge base, a library and a certificate/diploma/post-graduate diploma programme in alternative methods.
The Center will also bring together stakeholders in the 3Rs, i.e. academia, scientific community, industry, government and animal welfare personnel from national/international levels, to raise the awareness and facilitate the exchange of information and ideas on alternatives to translate the vision of the 3Rs into policy and curricular changes in India as relevant to education and research. The Center will also help by way of funding the research and development of environmentally friendly pedagogical tools and in vitro alternative methods for life science teaching and research. The twin approach will be to encourage the use of e-tools, to help establish virtual learning centres for teaching, and to establish a state-of-the-art cell culture laboratory for training in non-animal methods of research and product testing. The Center will essentially be a service provider for non-animal methods in learning, research and testing.
The Center is the fruitful culmination of a decade’s work of People for Animals, Chennai, and I-CARE, Chennai, in promoting the concept of the 3Rs in India.
Prof. Akbarsha, Trichy, India |
| |
 Gandhi-Gruber-Doerenkamp Chair for Alternatives to the Use of Animals in Life Science Education:
Prof. Dr. Mohammad Abdulkader Akbarsha
Mahatma Gandhi-Doerenkamp Center
Bharathidasan University
Tiruchirappalli – 620 024
Tamilnadu, India
Email: akbarbdu@yahoo.com
See:
Movement to Curtail Animal Dissections in Zoology Curriculum: review of the Indian Experience
ALTEX 24 (3), 163-166 |
| |
| http://www.bdu.ac.in/mgdc/ |
| USA: Inauguration of the Doerenkamp-Zbinden Chair at Johns Hopkins University |
Cheer for chair – some observations from the inauguration of Thomas Hartung as the Doerenkamp-Zbinden Chair for Evidence-based Toxicology
The Johns Hopkins University is a private research university in Baltimore, Maryland, United States. Johns Hopkins (named after Johns Hopkins, who left $7 million in his will 1873 – at the time, this was the largest philanthropic bequest in US history equivalent to $131 million in the year 2006) has graduate programs in medicine, public health, music, and international studies. Johns Hopkins is one of the top universities in the world – for example it ranked first of 20 top US academic institutions in total research & development spending for the 29th year in a row. And Johns Hopkins is known to entertain already for 28 years the Center for Alternatives to Animal Testing (CAAT), which became under the leadership of its founder Prof. Alan Goldberg a key promoter for alternative methods in the US, best known for its website AltWeb (http://altweb. jhsph.edu/) and the TestSmart workshops and conferences (last on developmental neurotoxicity in November 2008). It was not easy to find somebody to succeed Alan Goldberg, who turns 70 this fall: For more than four years, search committees looked for a candidate with a reputation and academic standing adequate for this prominent position.
|
Thomas Hartung fulfilled these criteria – a professor from the University of Konstanz, Germany, with more than 300 scientific papers and from 2002 to 2008 head of ECVAM, the European Center for the Validation of Alternative Methods. When asked what made him change to the US, his answer was quick: “The fantastic environment of Hopkins and the enthusiastic discussion on a paradigm shift in toxicology stirred by the vision report from the US National Academy of Sciences”. The Doerenkamp-Zbinden Foundation enabled this change by endowing a chair for evidence-based toxicology linked to CAAT. On the basis of this endowment Hopkins commits to maintain a chair with this research direction until the university ceases to exist.
Thomas Hartung on the "chair" and Alan Goldberg
On 12th of May 2009, we were able to witness the celebration of the inauguration, which demonstrated impressively, how much the university embraces this donation and this area of research. University president Ron Daniels and Dean Michael Klag left no doubt about their full support, expressing their appreciation for the past of CAAT and their expectations for seeing it further flourish in the future.
In an entertaining presentation, Thomas Hartung laid out some stations of his career, which led him to Baltimore. As a thought starter, he recalled when he synthesized aspirin as a student of biochemistry and medicine in Tuebingen, Germany. Seeing the result of his work, he wondered whether he would dare to swallow it. Most probably not, if he would rely on to todate’s toxicology, which has shown that the chemical is “harmful if swallowed”, a skin, eye and respiratory irritant, a co-carcinogen and embryotoxic in cat, dog, rat, mouse and monkey. Good that there was no toxicology in 1899 – the drug would hardly have made it to the market. In marked contrast, after one million billions of pills taken by men, annual production is close to 50 thousand tons and sales close to $ 800 million. Hartung then showed, how his mentor Albrecht Wendel, Tuebingen and Konstanz, guided him toward pharmacology and toxicology, citing former FDA president Arnold Lehmann “You too can become a toxicologist in two easy lessons, each ten years long.“ He continued showing how the years in ECVAM with the European Commission have shaped his view on toxicology and the need for new approaches. The close collaboration with Alan Goldberg and CAAT during these years enabled a smooth transition now. Among others Hartung and Goldberg published in 2005 an article in Scientific American (later translated into Arabian, Chinese, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Portugese, Spanish and other) entitled “Protecting more than animals”. This describes well their joint approach, which stresses that humane science is the best science – to protect consumers and patients as well as animals.
Finally, Hartung explained again his concept to translate evidence-based Medicine to toxicology (see also his article in 2/09 issue of Altex). All together, an entertaining presentation, which set the scene for prospects in research, education and the “CAATalyst” role of the center.
The Doerenkamp-Zbinden foundation is proud to have helped install at such prominent place a chair to support the paradigm shift in toxicology. The choice of the inaugural professor raises hopes as to the contribution to be expected. By supporting the Transatlantic Think Tank of Toxicology (t4) – a collaboration of the toxicology oriented Doerenkamp-Zbinden chairs in Konstanz, Utrecht and Baltimore – the support continues to make a new approach in toxicology possible. The photographs from the inauguration give an impression of the event – a milestone on the long road to go.
fpg |
| USA: A new Doerenkamp-Zbinden chair in Baltimore |
In December 08 the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore/USA entered a contract with the Doerenkamp-Zbinden Foundation in Kuesnacht ZH/Switzerland that will enable Johns Hopkins University to install a permanent Doerenkamp-Zbinden Chair for evidence based toxicology. The Foundation dedicates this chair to its scientific founder, the toxicologist Gerhard Zbinden of Zurich.
Thomas Hartung, former head of ECVAM (European Center for the Validation of Alternative Methods), who already guaranteed good relations between European and US authorities in that function, shall be appointed to the chair. Hartung will also take over as director of CAAT, the first Center for Alternatives to Animal Testing established worldwide, whose first director, Alan Goldberg, has been an honorary member of the scientific advisory committee of the Doerenkamp-Zbinden Foundation for many years.
Large projects have already been initiated: the T4-Project, which shall connect the two continents and closely link up the DZF Chairs, is already introduced in ALTEX 1/08.
The Doerenkamp Zbinden Foundation has followed the strategy to establish university chairs in addition to supporting research projects very successfully since 2003. Nevertheless, January of 2009 represents a milestone in its promotion of alternative methods. For the first time a chair for alternative methods will be established outside of Europe. And if we may further trust in the evolving dynamics of this foundation, it will likely not be the last. |
fpg |
| EU/USA: A transatlantic think tank of toxicology (t4) |
The foundation board of the Doerenkamp-Zbinden Foundation (DZF) decided to create a toxicological think tank (working name t4 – Transatlantic Think Tank of Toxicology) with the following aims:
- analyse current tools and programs and model / forecast the likely outcome with regard to safety and economical burden (cost/benefit analyses)
- compare different approaches on an international scale (especially transatlantic) and support harmonization
- further the concept of an evidence-based toxicology (EBT) following the role model of evidence-based medicine
- develop and assess the conceptual needs to enable change of approaches (predictive toxicology, integrated testing, systems toxicology, organo-typic and stem cell cultures)
- create and maintain the information platforms (AltWeb, ALTEX, TestSmart workshops etc.) to further paradigm change in toxicology
In order to set-up such a structure, the Doerenkamp-Zbinden-Foundation with its professorships created in Konstanz and Utrecht shall collaborate with the Johns Hopkins Centre for Alternatives to Animal Testing (CAAT). The think tank shall prepare and disseminate high-quality analyses of toxicological problems. They shall be disseminated by AltWeb (CAAT) and the journal ALTEX (DZF). For this purpose it is suggested to make ALTEX an International Journal for Alternatives in Testing and Experimentation, with an additional American editor. With the “food for thought” series of articles, the journal has started to establish itself as a platform for novel concepts in toxicology. By publishing now beyond questions raised high-quality analyses this role shall be further profiled. The established structures of CAAT (stakeholder outreach, AltWeb, TestSmart series of workshops etc.) shall be employed to further disseminate concepts. The CAAT funding program shall be focused on work related to the paradigm change in toxicology, i.e. pilot studies for novel methodologies and also (desktop) analyses in the sense of the think tank. A series of workshops with invited experts shall complement this program.
Pressrelease DZF |
| CH: A Doerenkamp-Naef-Zbinden Chair in Geneva |
The contract to establish a Chair for Alternative Methods at the University of Geneva was concluded with determination and much confidence of success. The stakeholders: the medical faculty of the University of Geneva, the Egon-Naef Foundation and the Doerenkamp-Zbinden Foundation. The five-year contract was signed on the 29th of November 2008 in Geneva on occasion of a ceremony introducing the new chairholder.
Pierre Cosson, who has been very successful in the area of invertebrate immunology for many years, has been appointed as chairholder. Cosson could prove surprising parallels between the pathogenicity of microorganisms in amoebocytes (which can be found in the earth of every flower pot) and mammals. Supported by the 3R Research Foundation Switzerland (www.forschung3r.ch), Pierre Cosson established a study group on the identification of pathological correlations in invertebrates. Cosson is introduced in more detail in the Info-Bulletin 36 of the 3R Research Foundation Switzerland: http://www.forschung3r.ch/de/publications/bu36.html.
The chair will carry the name “Doerenkamp-Naef-Zbinden Chair for Alternative Methods”. Pierre Cosson will not only cover invertebrate immunology, but the entire scope of alternative methods. For this purpose he will organise regular guest lectures and lecture courses on the subject of 3R methods at the University of Geneva.
The DZF has especially high hopes for the centre for the production of in vitro antibodies that Cosson intends to establish. This method has been known for years - it was already introduced in 1995 in a bulletin of the 3R Research Foundation Switzerland, www.forschung3r.ch/de/publications/bu5.html
<http://www.forschung3r.ch/de/publications/bu5.html>, but was never followed up by the authors. According to Cosson, the method still suffered technical difficulties at that time. A series of failed attempts resulted in the abandonment of this promising technology. In the meantime, most problems have been eliminated, so that the only remaining obstacle to routine use of the method is the lack of willpower of many potential users. Furnished with special funds of the DZF, an antibody laboratory, which shall routinely produce recombinant antibodies in vitro will now be established at the University of Geneva. Some hundred thousand rabbits worldwide can hardly wait.
pressrelease DZF |
| Press Release from Utrecht University |
Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, 6 November 2008
New professor studies alternatives to animal testing
‘Cell culture and computer model can replace animal testing’
The health risks for people who are exposed to toxic substances are now mainly based on data from animal testing. Thanks to the advancement of biological expertise combined with the use of computer models, those risks can be assessed more and more accurately without having to use animals as a model for humans. These new strategies, which lead to the use of fewer test animals, should much stronger be encouraged by the government, Bas Blaauboer argued in his inaugural lecture on 4 November at Utrecht University. Blaauboer is professor of the Toxicology Division of the Institute for Risk Assessment Sciences (IRAS).
|
Blaauboer was appointed professor for 'Alternatives to animal testing for toxicological risk assessment'. He will be looking for possibilities to eliminate the need for ‘second species animals’. In this case, after testing on rats or mice, a substance is tested again on a larger mammal, such as a dog. In medical research, for example, this second round of testing is still required by law.
The Swiss 'Doerenkamp-Zbinden Foundation', which supports research into the reduction of test animal use, will fund the new chair for an amount of over € 1.5 million.
Toxicology as guardian of health
Toxicology studies the risks posed by substances to people's health. These substances can be found in food, medicines, cleaning products or cosmetics, but also in materials that people come into contact with during their work. These health risks are now mainly assessed via animal testing. ‘The government determines which tests must be performed before a substance or product can be marketed,’ explains Blaauboer. ‘Thanks to advancements in working with cell cultures and computer calculations, however, we can now also assess and predict the toxic effects of substances accurately without animal testing. We are better, for example, at translating the knowledge obtained at the cellular level into effects in people. For this we use computer simulations that calculate the absorption, distribution and metabolism of substances in the body. Many of these methods already are available and can be used to assess risks. The government should be encouraging the use and acceptance of these new methods without test animals to a much greater extent.’
Broad expertise relating to test animals present within Utrecht University
The Institute for Risk Assessment Sciences (IRAS) is an interfaculty research institute of Utrecht University, supported by the faculties of Veterinary Medicine, Medicine and Science. Apart from the Toxicology Division, IRAS also has divisions for Environment-Epidemiology and Veterinary Public Health. The new chair was created at the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, where within the Department of Animals, Science and Society (DWM) broad scientific expertise and experience are present in the field of test animal science and alternatives to animal testing. DWM has departments for Test Animal Science and for Ethology and Welfare. Additionally, it provides accommodation for the National Centre for Alternatives to Animal Testing (NCA). On 5–7 February 2009, DWM and NCA will be organising an international symposium on the use of test animals in a changing world, among other things, in connection with the ‘Cabinet View on Alternatives to Animal Testing’ that was published earlier this year.
Further information
Sebastiaan Fluitsma, Veterinary Medicine Information Officer, +31 30 253 47 22, s.fluitsma@uu.nl.
Or Wietske de Lange, Utrecht University Press Officer, +31 30 253 40 73, w.delange@uu.nl.
Website Utrecht University: www.uu.nl/EN.
|
| NL/CH: Doerenkamp-Zbinden Chair founded at Utrecht University |
On the 13th of February 2008, in the office of the dean of the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Utrecht, the faculty director, the director
of the Institute for Risk Assessment (IRAS) and the president of the Foundation
Board of the Doerenkamp-Zbinden Foundation (Zurich) signed a contract to
establish an endowed chair at the University of Utrecht for initially six years, with
the intention to extend it to eight years. In its function, the chair is especially dedicated to the memory of the toxicologist Gerhard Zbinden of Zurich (1924-1993). This is an important signal, which will further anchor the 3R principle in
academia. The Doerenkamp-Zbinden Chair for Alternative Methods in Toxicology,
which will be held by Bas Blaauboer, will aim especially to reach the following research goals stipulated in the contract:
• Biotransformation of compounds in human in vitro systems.
• Use of in vitro models to study mechanisms of toxicity.
• Development of QSAR models for the estimation of relevant toxic endpoints.
• Development and implementation of PBBK models for the interpretation of in
vitro toxicity data for their relevance of exposure scenarios.
• Research in the factors and actors involved in the implementation of alternative
methods in regulatory processes.
• The replacement and reduction in the use of companion animals, especially
dogs and rabbits, has priority in all the mentioned research lines.
Thus, two years after Marcel Leist took the Doerenkamp-Zbinden Chair for in
vitro alternative methods in Konstanz the second chair in Europe dedicated purely to alternative methods has been established. A close cooperation between the endowed chairs in Konstanz and Utrecht has been ensured by setting up scientific advisory committees, in both of which the president of the Doerenkamp-Zbinden Foundation holds a seat and vote.
With this chair also the seeking for the leadership in the project "Companion Animals" has found a happy end. |
| fpg |
| Doerenkamp-Zbinden Chair for Alternative Methods in Konstanz taken up |
On the 17th of July 2003 Professor Kay Brune (University of Erlangen), then president of the Doerenkamp-Zbinden Foundation, and Bernhard Koch, member of the governing council and President of the Thurgau Foundation for Science and Research signed an agreement between the two foundations to establish and finance an „Endowed Chair for in vitro Methods for the Replacement of Animal Experiments” at the University of Konstanz (reported in ALTEX 2/2003, p. 99).
By establishing and financing this professorship, the foundations followed the shared goal to develop alternative methods to animal experiments in the areas of health and consumer protection in an international context, to evaluate them and to prepare their implementation in national and international guidelines through interdisciplinary scientific research. The Chair shall be financed by the Doerenkamp-Zbinden Foundation with 300.000 € per year for 10 years. After both four and eight years the Chair shall be evaluated. Next to evaluating the performance in research and teaching, the first evaluation shall include a recommendation on whether the Endowed Chair should be terminated or continued. The second evaluation shall determine whether the Chair has reached its goal to integrate modern animal protection in research and teaching and to implement it successfully within Europe and, most importantly, whether the Endowed Chair should be extended after the end of ten years financed by the state.
After advertisement of the position in November 2003, the appointment committee decided on a list of three candidates in the summer of 2004. The position was offered by the university to the first-placed candidate in April of 2005 after numerous clarifications and discussions with the Ministry of Science in Stuttgart. The negotiations culminated in the acceptance of the position in March 2006 by the first-placed candidate.
|
The first chair-holder of the Endowed Chair for in vitro Methods for the Replacement of Animal Experiments will be the biologist Marcel Leist, born in 1964 in Freiburg/Brsg. Leist studied biochemistry in Tübingen and completed his studies in 1989 at the University of Surry (Guildford-GB) with a Master of Science in Toxicology. He worked on his Ph.D. at the University of Konstanz from 1990 to 1993 in the field of apoptosis, inflammation and the effects of TNF on hepatocyte cultures. He became laboratory manager in the working group Vitamins and Atherosclerosis at the German Institute for Human Nutrition in Potsdam-Rehbrücke and worked there on selenoenzymes and Vitamin E, then returned to the University of Konstanz where he was appointed at the Chair of Molecular Toxicology from 1995 to 1998 and gained his venia docendi. In 2000, Leist was employed by the company H. Lundbeck A/S in Denmark. His work led him through mechanisms of neuroprotection, neuroinflammation and cytokine receptors; he focussed on membrane proteins that promise new intervention possibilities for neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s Disease, Parkinson’s Disease and schizophrenia. As a university lecturer he supervised students of the neurosciences at the University of Copenhagen. Designated for a top position in Lundbeck research, Leist declined this offer in favour of the Endowed Chair in Konstanz.
We wish Marcel Leist a good start and naturally hopes that many synergies will develop with the Chair in close proximity.
|
|
|
 |
 |
)
)
)
)
)
)