2024 Prize Shortlist

Fifty five projects from around the world have been shortlisted for the Lush Prize 2024.

The seven categories represent outstanding work in scientific initiatives to replace animal testing with biologically-relevant, non-animal science, public awareness campaigns to draw attention to ongoing animal tests and political lobbying to end animal testing.

The Lush Prize Judging Panel will meet in February to select the winning projects that will share the £250,000 prize funds (Political Achievement and Major Science Collaboration are non-financial awards).

 

Lobbying

Animal Free Research UK
UK
Shaping the Future: Building Policymakers’ Support for Modernising Medical Research

Animal-Free Science Advocacy
Australia
Lobbying for a ban on forced smoke inhalation research

Animal Justice
Canada
Ending toxicity testing on animals in Canada

Center for Contemporary Sciences
USA
Policies to Replace Animal testing

Environment & Animal Society of Taiwan (EAST)
Taiwan
Establishing an Inter-Ministerial Platform for Alternative Technologies to Animal Testing in Taiwan

I-Care Europe ODV
Italy
From researcher to researcher – alternative lobbying

ISO/TC-194/WG8
Switzerland
Build the consensus for regulatory acceptance of non-animal methods (NAMs) for medical devices

 

Major Science Collaboration

Coalition to Illuminate and Address Animal Methods Bias (COLAAB)
USA

OECD (Q)SAR Assessment Framework
France

RISK-HUNT3R
Germany

 

Political Achievement

Jean-Yves Duclos
Member of Parliament for Québec
Canada

Emma Hurst
Parliament of New South Wales
Australia

 

Public Awareness

Animal Aid
UK
Ban lethal dose animal tests

Animal Testing
France
Household products investigation

Beagle Freedom Project
USA
Ambassador Campaign

CBUK
UK
Animal Testing -The Scandal of our Time

ONG Te Protejo
Chile
Awareness activities achieving legislative changes in Latin America

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals
USA
Defunding Fraud: The Exposé of Animal Abuse at Caucaseco Scientific Research Consortium in Colombia

Proefdiervrij
Netherlands
Animal testing is out of date

Safer Medicines Trust
UK
Rat Trap: a popular science book about animal research and the methodologies available to replace it

Tracks Investigations
UK
Unveiling Cruelty Beyond Laboratories: Tracks’ Probing Investigations into Primate Trade and Blood Farms

 

Science

Prof Guan-Yu Chen
Taiwan
Biomimetic Breakthrough: Animal-Free mRNA Therapeutics for Cystic Fibrosis

Comparative Toxicogenomics Database
USA
The Comparative Toxicogenomics Database provides computational solutions that fill mechanistic knowledge gaps for toxic adverse pathways

devTOXqP + qIVIVE
USA
Quantitative in vitro to in vivo extrapolation for developmental toxicity potency using human stem cell metabolomics

Emulate Inc.
USA
Validation of Emulate’s Human Liver Chip for Preclinical Toxicology

Tetsutaro Kikuchi
Japan
In vitro circulation model driven by tissue-engineered dome-shaped cardiac tissue

Metatissue
Portugal
Metatissue: Human-based biomimetic platforms to replace animal-derived materials and testing

Prof Andrew Nelson
UK
Membrane-on-chip platform to screen pharmaceuticals, compounds and materials for putative toxicity

PETA Science Consortium International e.V.
Germany
Replacing the Use of Animals in Inhalation Toxicity Testing

QSAR Lab spin-off University of Gdansk (Scientific team: Prof. Puzyn, Dr Jagiello & Dr Mikolakczyk)
Poland
AOP-Anchored in silico-based NAMs for design safer multicomponent nanomaterials

 

Training

3R-Center Tübingen for In vitro Models and Alternatives to Animal Testing
Germany
Training the Next Generation of Researchers in the Field of Microphysiological Systems

Animal Aid
UK
Future of science student conference

Center for Alternatives to Animal Testing (CAAT)
USA
CAAT Information and Education Program

Dr Giuseppe Esposito
Switzerland
Microsurgical training using a human placenta model – an innovative and animal-free way of surgical education

European Organ-on-Chip Society
Netherlands
Organ-on-Chip Training

Massey University School of Veterinary Science
Aotearoa New Zealand
Replacement of terminal surgical practical classes with model-based skill instruction in veterinary undergraduate training in Aotearoa New Zealand

School of Public Health, China Medical University
China
China National Workshops in Computational Toxicology Training and Application

Tanzania Animal Welfare Society (TAWESO)
Tanzania
Replacement of animals with alternatives in Animal Health College Training in Tanzania

ToxNavigation Ltd.
UK
Tutor-assisted eLearning – computational toxicology

Young TPI
Netherlands
Young TPI – Empowering the new scientific generation to go animal-testing-free

 

Young Researcher

Jonathan Blum
University of Konstanz, Germany
Integration of human cell-based test methods to assess developmental neurotoxicity

Lauren Coelho
Universidade Federal de Goias, Brazil
Multi-organ-on-chip platform for human teratogenicity screening of cosmetics

Martina Iulini
Università degli Studi di Milano, Italy
Advancing Immunotoxicity Studies Through Innovative In Vitro Human Models: A Focus on Primary Antibody Production

Dr Barbara Jozef
Eawag, ETH domain, Switzerland
Exploring Early Neurotoxic Effects: Phenotypic Profiling of Rainbow Trout Brain Cells for Identifying Distinct Modes of Action in Chemicals
(*permanent – also termed ‘immortalised’ – cell lines have an indefinite lifespan and do not require the use of ‘new’ animals for production, so these meet the strict eligibility criteria for Lush Prize.)

Byunggik (Jason) Kim
Johns Hopkins University, USA
High-Throughput Neuromuscular Chip Platform: A Revolutionary Approach to Botulinum Neurotoxin Assays Without Animals

Dr Molly Kozminsky
Iowa State University, USA
An in vitro bone marrow microenvironment platform to model therapeutic toxicity

Dr Chao Ma
New York University, USA
Bioengineering Ex Vivo Human Leukemia Bone Marrow Precision Immuno-Oncology Platform: Preclinical Screening for Personalized CAR T-cell Immunotherapy

Dr Kirsty Meldrum
Swansea University, UK
Advancement of what is established: Building upon current pulmonary models and including “unhealthy” populations

Aina Kehinde Oluwasegun
Friedrich Schiller University, Germany
Isogenic hiPSC based HLA-matched liver-on-chip platform : A valuable in-vitro tool for modelling inflammation and fibrosis

Dr Nuria Roldan
PETA Science Consortium International e.V., Germany
Building confidence in in vitro inhalation testing – a focus on metabolism

Dr Maren Schenke
Johns Hopkins University, USA
Addressing sex differences in brain development without animals

Dr Hyun Kil Shin
Korea Institute of Toxicology, South Korea
Agent D2: Reinforcement learning with human feedback for safe drug design

Dr Nicoleta Spinu
esqLABS GmbH, Netherlands
Data Integration and Interpretation from New Approach Methodologies with Bayesian Item Response Theory

Zheng Tan
University of British Columbia, Canada
Establishing a multi-organ co-culture in an organ-on-a-chip setup to emulate the human atopic march

Sam Youmans
XCellR8, UK
Creating a Multi-species Database for Acute Toxicity Chemical Assessment