Could 2015 be a ‘Black Box’ year?

Nominations for the 2015 Lush Prize are now open.

The Prize, now in its fourth year, has already rewarded 37 scientists and organisations in 19 countries with £750,000 of funding for ‘outstanding contributions’ to replacing animal testing.

We look forward to receiving your nominations for prize winners across all our categories.

 

Opening the Black Box?

 
This year, there is some excitement amongst the team involved in the Prize that 2015 could see the awarding of its first Black Box Prize.

When the Prize was set up in 2013, it was realised that a key breakthrough in moving to non-animal safety tests would occur when scientists could fully map ‘adverse outcome pathways’. This involves ‘opening the black box’ or understanding, at a molecular level, the sequence of events from a human coming into contact with a toxic substance to them showing symptoms of damage or disease.

At our Judging day last year, our scientific judges were much engaged in debate on whether work on the skin sensitisation adverse outcome pathway might soon be eligible for a Black Box award since a pathway appeared to have been fully elucidated. We commissioned a research paper on the subject , and will be exploring the prospects in more detail over the coming months.

Download ‘The Lush Black Box Prize and the skin sensitisation adverse outcome pathway’ as a PDF

 

Resources

 
Other Lush Prize staff and supporters are hard at work reaching out to campaigners and lobbyists all around the world.

We were asked for a simple list of evidence which shows key problems with the scientific validity of animal research, so have created a ‘Short list of animal testing failures‘.
Download ‘Animal Testing Failures’ as a PDF.

Another excellent resource is a new publication by Animal Aid Director and Lush Prize judge, Andrew Tyler – ‘The Scientific Case Against the Use of Animals in Biomedical Research‘.

 

 
As always we welcome comment, criticism and questions relating to all our publications and projects – you can contact us by email here.