In its media release on 4 March 2022, the Swiss 3RCC has communicated the two award recipients and added: With their research the awardees not only help promote the 3Rs principle, which aims to replace, reduce and refine animal experiments, they communicated their projects in an exemplary manner to encourage other researchers to adopt these novel approaches in their work.
Pauline Zamprogno helped to develop a new lung advanced in vitro model, called lung-on-chip, which is a promising alternative to animals for studying lung disease and identifying new therapeutic targets. The new model is a further development of the first-generation lung-on-chips, which were mounted on silicone-based (PDMS) membranes. By contrast, Zamprogno at the organ-on-chip lab developed a purely biological membrane made of lung extracellular matrix proteins. This model reproduces some key features of the alveoli in term of composition, structure and microenvironment. It opens up new possibilities for basic research on pulmonary diseases as well as studies to predict the safety and efficacy of new drugs.
The jury consisted of independent external reviewers from the Charité 3Rs (Berlin, DE) and the North American 3Rs Collaborative/University of Washington (USA) as well as a representative of the Swiss Federal Food Safety and Veterinary Office (FSVO). The 3Rs Award 2021 and Young 3Rs Investigator Award recipients will receive CHF 4,000 and CHF 1,000 respectively to support their studies. Furthermore, they will get the opportunity to present their awarded research at the Swiss 3Rs Day 2022 and in a featured video.
