Launched in 2014, the Provost’s Awards for excellence in animal research acknowledged staff who have made advances in the 3Rs, shown openness or demonstrated a long-term commitment to improving research practice.
Winners of the previous editions can be found in the Annual Reports.
Award winners for 2024
Application of the 3Rs, researchers - Miss Maike Haensel, Research Postgraduate.
Miss Maike Haensel receive the Provost’s Award for developing an innovative 3D organ-on-a-chip cell culture device called REVAS, which models respiratory and vascular systems from the human lung. Chronic respiratory diseases rank as the third leading cause of death globally. Despite extensive research, there is no effective cure, and 80% of drug candidates fail in clinical trials. This is largely due to current cell culture methods failing to replicate the complex interactions among multiple cell types from lung alveoli and blood vessels in the lung, affected by the disease. Animal models also inadequately reflect human physiology, leading to drug attrition. REVAS represents a significant step forward in addressing this critical need and represents a significant advancement towards constructing complex, multicellular model systems, ultimately aiming to create a human body-on-a-chip.
Application of the 3Rs, CBS Staff - Miss Cheryl Brown, Animal Technologist.
Miss Cheryl Brown receive the Provost’s Award for setting up and managing the use of surplus animals' system within the breeding unit. How to minimize the surplus animals is a common 3Rs issue in many animal units. Cheryl led on the introduction of a new surplus management system to ensure that the surplus animals - naturally deriving from maintaining breeding colonies – were easily available for the designated trainers and users needing them. This system allows users to refine skills for future works and to reduce the total number of animals used at Imperial. Finally, it helps educate both staff and users on 3Rs practices.
Team award - Dr Chengxing Lian, Research Associate; Mr Jun Cai, MRes Student; Miss Justyna Glegola, Training and Competency Assessor; Dr Ginny Fisher, Named Veterinary Surgeon; Dr Mike Emerson, Reader in Platelet Pharmacology.
This team received the Provost’s Award for working together to introduce new refinements in the rat model of bleeding injury and reducing the number of animals need for experiments. Traumatic injury caused by accidents and injuries is the major cause of death in young people and death is preventable if treatment is given quickly and effectively. Current interventions are not efficient in preventing blood loss and tears open wounds. Imperial Bioengineering team developed a novel material able to solve this issue. To test the efficacy and safety of the material before clinical trials, the scientists teamed up with CBS staff to develop a rat model allowing application of multiple test devices within a single animal, leading to fewer rats used. Moreover, they also refined the anaesthesia, administration of analgesia and surgery protocols to maximise the welfare of the animals used. Thanks to this team effort, the study is now closer to clinical studies that will lead to reduced death from traumatic bleeding injuries. They have also developed an improved the animal model of bleeding injury compared to the standard, established model.
Public Engagement award - Miss Chiara Pojani, PhD Student; Dr Elaine Irvine, Senior Investigator; Miss Stephanie Natario, Advanced Animal Technologist; Dr Anna Napolitano, 3Rs and Communications Programme Manager.
This team received the Provost’s Award for working together to communicate with a wide audience about the use of animals in research via social media channels. Social media like Instagram are powerful platforms that reaches out to a wide audience, particularly young people. Animal research can be a potentially difficult subject to talk about, especially in such large and uncontrolled environment. This team embraced the challenge and opened the doors to Imperial’s breeding unit and to one of the experimental units during an Instagram Takeover for the Understanding Animal Research’s #MiceInResearch event. The Imperial Instagram takeover saw as protagonist an animal technologist from the breeding unit explaining how the animals are cared for on a day-to-day basis. A PhD student emphasising why animal models are vital to understand how the brain regulates feeding and its role in the causes of obesity. Finally, a senior scientist highlighting the guidelines that all animal staff and researchers need to follow when working with animal and the rigorous process that researchers need to go through to obtain a Project Licence. This gave a very comprehensive overview of the workings of CBS, the need for animal use in scientific research and the regulations in place. As result of their success, Imperial was awarded an Openness Award at the Concordat on Openness Award ceremony in December 2023 which is an important achievement for Imperial and highlights the quality of the Imperial Instagram event.