One of the main goals of eTRANSAFE is to significantly contribute to the application of the 3Rs (Replacement, Reduction, Refinement) guiding principles for more ethical use of animals in research. An important activity towards this aim is the recent collaboration established with the UK-based NC3Rs around their Mega CRACK IT Challenge for Virtual Second Species launched in Summer 2021.
This three-phase Challenge aims to apply advanced computation and mathematical modelling approaches to develop a suite of virtual dog tissues and organs to model toxicological endpoints for new chemical entities. The final goal of the Challenge is to replace dog as a study species in non-clinical studies for the assessment of the efficacy and potential toxic effects of drugs before first use in humans.
eTRANSAFE has teamed up with NC3Rs for the Phase I of the Challenge awarded in January that will go on until September 2022 (link). eTRANSAFE acts as a data provider, making available toxicology study data donated by several project EFPIA partners, who support this CRACK IT Challenge. The goal is to use these data to enable the development of in silico approaches by the awarded team (link), led by Dr Stephan Schaller (esqLABS GmbH).